Skip to main content

Full text of "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan: Including a Summer in the Upper Karun Region and a Visit to ..."

See other formats 


Google 



This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 

to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 

to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 

are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 

publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 
We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 

at |http : //books . google . com/| 




/vS 



^^ GIFT OF ^^ 

John Garber Palacbe 

Helen Palaebe Lam.ia/e 

from the estate of 

the late Judge John Garhir 



JOURNEYS 



IN 



PERSIA AND KURDISTAN 




IJV.- 




JOUKNEYS 



IN 



PEESIA AND KURDISTAN 

INCLUDING A SUMMER IN THE UPPER KARUN 

REGION AND A VISIT TO THE 

NESTORIAN RAYAHS 



/.- ^ 



By MRS. BISHOP.- '^''^'"'•^ 



(ISABELLA L. BIRD) 



I 



BOMORARY FELLOW OP THE ROYAL SCOTTISH OEOORAPHICAL SOCIETY 

AUTHOR OF ' SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS ' 

' UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN," ETC. 



IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I. 



WITH PORTRAIT, MAPS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS 



New York : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
London: JOHN MURRAY 

1891 



TO 

%lit iBtitrabelUo 9^atip, 

THESE VOLUMES 
ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED 



WORKS BY MRS. BISHOP. 



" Miss Bird's fascinating and instructive work on Japan fully maintains 
her well-earned reputation as a traveller of the first order, and a graphic 
and picturesque writer. Miss Bird is a l)om traveller, fearless, enthusiastic, 
patient, instructed, knowing as well what as how to describe. No peril 
daunts her, no prospect of fotigue or discomfort disheartens or repels 
heT."~-Quarterly Review. 



I. UNBEATEN TRACKS IN JAPAN, Including Visits to the 
Aborigines of Yezo and the Shrines of Nikko and Is^. 
With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.50. 

II. A LADY'S LIFE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 
With Illustrations. Post 8vo. $1.75, 

III. THE HAWAIIAN ARCHIPELAGO : Six Months Among 

the Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands. 

With Illustrations. Crown 8vo. $2.50. 

IV. THE GOLDEN CHERSONESE AND THE WAY THITHER. 
With Map and Illustrations. Crown Svo. $2.00. 



G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



PKEFACE 

The letters of which these volumes are composed embrace 
the second half of journeys in the East extending over 
a period of two years.^ They attempt to be a faithful 
record of facts and impressions, but were necessarily 
written in haste at the conclusion of fatiguing marches, 
and often in circumstances of great discomfort and diffi- 
culty, and I relied for their correction in the event of 
publication on notes made with much care. Unfortu- 
nately I was robbed of nearly the whole of these, partly 
on my last journey in Persia and partly on the Turkish 
frontier, — a serious loss, which must be my apology to the 
reader for errors which, without this misfortune, would 
not have occurred. 

The bibliography of Persia is a very extensive one, 
and it may well be that I have little that is new to 
communicate, except on a part of Luristan previously 
untraversed by Europeans ; but each traveller receives 
a different impression from those made upon his pre- 
decessors, and I hope that my book may be accepted as 
an honest attempt to make a popular contribution to the 
sum of knowledge of a country and people with which 
we are likely to be brought into closer relations. 

^ I left England with a definite object in view, to which others were 
subservient, but it is not necessary to obtrude it on the reader. 



vm PREFACE 

As those volumes are simply travels in Persia and 
MiiNttiiu iVsia Minor, and are not a book on either cmmtry, 
ilii) liiftavnoes to such subjects as were not within the 
.i|»hi)ni of uiy observation are brief and incidental The 
iuluiiuist ration of government, the religious and legal 
.'*,>. ilrni.4. tho tenure of land, and the mode of taxation 
liiii difiiiii.'-wod in a few lines, and social customs are only 
tlr;u'ulHHl whon I came in contact with them. The 
ll^valrt, or noiuudic tribes, form a very remarkable element 
(•I tho |u»|»uhitiou of Persia, but I have only noticed two 
ill thru divJMious — the Bakhtiari and Feili Lurs. The 
aitlupnlii^ of IVi'sia are also passed over with hardly a 
Ktiiiiuk, u« woll rtH many other subjects, which have been 
tliirihiul out" by previous writers with more or less of 

liii uiarv 

i luako thi^Mo omissions with all the more satisfaction, 
iM^tiiiii^ iiiiwl thut is "knowable" concerning Persia will 
ii^v .u i«v>.')il>lo oh tho publication of a work now in the 
l*4t' » '. /\ '•*<'* <«'<«/ M«' Persian Question, by the Hon. George 
f^ i iii^.ou. M I*., who has not only travelled extensively 
(u I hit rpuhli.v. I»ut has bestowed such enormous labour 
.m.l tiv.riiith upon it, and has had such exceptional 
iiLi)Mii|iiiiilu>.t of lUMpiiring the latest and best official 
luliitMfiUttii. Iliut hJH volumes may fairly be described as 

U \i .iU\a.\'» H phMiMunt duty to acknowledge kindness, 
•vihl I 'iiu iliMt|ilv K»''^^*'*"l ^0 several friends for the help 
vvliiJi iIm.) \\i\\\\ ^'ivon me in many ways, and for the 
Uv'»^**K' s\hi»h '\K\\\\\\ of them have taken to recover facts 
wliu U \\iM» h'»i ^^ill» »»y notes, as well as for the careful 
loyi-^u.ii III .i iM»iliou tif my letters in MS. I am indebted 
.V ilw li^iU'kh iiulhorilioM for the materials for a sketch 
4^^,^l\i4 |ilhilii^\(u|ihH from which many of the illustrations 
.^jx iyyiyvvu., 4iu«l lor lh«^ use of a valuable geographical 
**\teAS* ^^^^^' to M» ThJHthiton Dyer, Director of the Eoyal 



Botftnic Gardens at Kew, for the identificatiou of a few 
of my botanical specimens. 

In justice to the many kind friends who received me 
into their homes. I am anxious to disclaim having either 
echoed or divulged their views on Persian or Turkish 
flubjects, and to claim and accept the fullest responsibility 
for the opinions expressed in tliese pages, which, whether 
right or wrong, are wholly my own. It is from those 
who know Persia aud Kurdistan the best that I am sure 
of receiving the most kindly allowance wherever, in spite 
of an honest desire to be accurate, 1 have fallen into 
mistakes. - 

The retention, not only of the form, but of the reality 
of diary letters, is not altogether satisfactory either to 
author or reader, for the author sacrifices the literary 
and artistic arrangement of his materials, and however 
ruthlessly omissions are made, the reader is apt to find 
himself involved iu a multiplicity of minor details, treated 
in a fashion which he is inclined to term " slipshod," aud 
to resent the egotism which persistently clings to familiar 
correspondence. Still, even with all the disadvantages of 
this form of narrative, I think that letters are the best 
mode of placing the reader in the position of the traveller, 
and of enabling him to share, not only first impressions 
in their original vividness, and the intei-ests and enjoy- 
menta of travelling, but the hardships, difficulties, and 
which are their frequent accompaniments ! 
!jte the lack of vivacity which, to my thinking, per- 
tiie following letters, I ask the reader's indulgence. 

sy were originally written, and have since been edited, 
under the heavj' and abiding shadow, not only of the loss 
of the beloved aud only sister who was the inspiration 
of my former books of travel, and to whose completely 
Bympathetic interest they owed whatever of brightness 
I they possessed, but of my beloved husband, whose able 



X PREFACE 

and careful revision accompanied my last volume through 
the Press. 

Believing that these letters faithfully reflect what I 
saw. of the regions of which they treat, I venture to 
ask for them the same kindly and lenient criticism with 
which my travels in the Far East and elsewhere were 
received in bygone years, and to express the hope that 
they may help to lead towards that goal to which all 
increase of knowledge of races and beliefs tends — a truer 
and kindlier recognition of the brotherhood of man, as 
seen in the light of the Fatherhood of God. 

ISABELLA L. BISHOP. 



November 12, 1891. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



IN VOLUME I. 




Mrs. Bishoj) (Isabella Ti. Bi 


ird) 




Frontispiece 


A Gopher 






Page 19 


A Turkish Frontier Fort 






To face page 78 


Lodj^ngs for Travellers 






82 


Persian Breacl-making 






. 159 


The Shrine of Fatinia 






. 167 


A Dervish 






. 237 


Castle of ArJal 






. 318 


Imam Kuli Khan 






. 326 


The Karun at Dupulan 






To face page 351 


Ali Jan . 






. 362 


Armenian Women of Libasgun 




. 366 


Wall and Oat^ of Libasgun 




To face page 368 


A Perso-Bakhtiari Cradle . 




. 372 


A Dastgird Tent 


a 




To face page 378 





^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 


^^^ GLOSSARY ^^B 


M ^tamftar, a covere.t reservoir. 


Kafir, an inHdel, a Christian. 


^1 Jfrtt^.n^^ter. 


Kalt, chopped straw. 


^^P^fltewi, women's qoartcra, a Aflmm. 




^■jM, > BOun apliit. 


Kallaa, a " hnbble.babhle " oi water- 


^K Bt^ir. «ii>d-tower. 


pipe for tobacco. 




ffniiiarfcamf, ■ girdle. 


Balakhnna, an upper room. 




Bringalt, egg pUnU. 


channel. 


Cfe.j«r, port. 


Kanat, the upright side of a tent. 


tVp" Khana. post-honse. 


Kar«i, a wooJen frame for covering a 


C)u,pi, the Btkhturi nitioDal dsnca. 


Bre-hole. 




Kaiirgi (Turkish), a muleteer. 


.RiT^.*, ;i(. a orpot-Bpreader. 


Kttehwla. a headman of a vUlage. 


Fariakk. frOKi three and e half to 




four inJlM. 




Oardan, a paaa. 


Khan (TurkisSi), au inn. 


Out. a awe«tnieat made from masna. 


Khaajar, a curved dagger. 


Odim. tliid carpets, dnigget. 


Kkaxji (Turkish), the keeper of a 


ahem, a sommer sLoe. 


khan. 


OlulaM, xa alRcial mesMnger or 


KAanum, a lady of rank. 




KkuijiHi, aatldle bags. 


EStim, a gnvernor. 


Kiak. a slab of animal fuel. 


iTnibn, a phfaician. 


Kooa, m. a ladder, a paw. 




Kourban^ (SyHac), the Holj' Com- 1 


Jiy»(.. the nomadic tribes of Persia. 




Am™, > Mint, a religion, teacher. 


Kran, eightpence. 1 




Kuh. mountain. ■ 


lailAal, a procBMiou of welcome. 


ii™ (Turkish), about £1. 1 


Jul. a horse's onter blanket. 


Mtd>:k (Syriac, lil. kiug), a chief Or 1 


Sabob. pieces of skewered meat 


headman. 1 


aeUoBed and toasted. 


MaTiachi. midwife. 1 



XIV 



GLOSSARY 



Mangelf a brazier. 

Masty curdled milk. 

Medressehf a college. 

Mina, a scribe, secretary, or gentle- 
man. An educated man. 

Modakely illicit percentage. 

MoUahy a religious teacher. 

Munshiy a clerk, a teacher of languages. 

Namady felt. 

NasTf steward. 

Odah (Turkish), a room occupied by 
human beings and animals. 

Piastre, a Turkish coin worth two- 
pence-halfpenny. 

Pirahan, a chemise or shirt 

Pish-kash, a nominal present. 

Qaaha (Syriac), a priest. 

Rayahs, subject Syrians. 

Roghan, clarified butter. 

Samovar, a Russian tea-urn . 

Sartip, a general. 

Seraidar, the keeper of a caravanserai 



Sharbat, a fruit syrup. 

Shroff, a money-changer. 

Shiddari \Shooldarry), a small tent 

with two poles and a ridge pole, 

but without karuUs. 
Shulicars, wide trousers. 
Sotoar, a horseman, a horse soldier. 
TakchdJi, a recess in a wall. 
Taktrawan, a mule litter. 
Tandtir, an oven in a floor. 
Tang, a rift or defile. 
Tufangchi, a foot soldier, an armed 

footman. 
Tuman, seven shillings and sixpence. 
Vakil, an authorised representative. 
Vakil u-Douieh, agent of Government. 
Yabu, a pony or inferior horse. 
YaH<ik8, summer quarters. 
Yekdan, a mule or camel trunk, made 

of leather. 
Yohoort (Turkish), curdled milk. 
Zaptich (Turkish), a gendarme. 




Sasrah, Asiatic Turkbt, Jan. 1, 1S90. 

A shamal or N.W. wind following on the sirocco which 
had accompanied us np " the Giilf " was lashing the shallow 
waters of the roadstead into reddish yeast as we let go 
the anchor opposite the sea front of Bushire, the most 
important seaport in Persia. Tht I'ersian man-of-war 
Persepolis, officered by Germans, H.M. ship Sphinx, two big 
steamers owned in London, a British-built three-masted 
clipper, owned and navigated by Arabs, and a few Arab 
native vessels tugged at their ancliors between two and 
three miles from the shore. Native huggtdows clustered 
and bumped round the trading vessels, hanging on with 
difficulty, or thumped and smashed through the abort 
waves, close on the wind, easily handled and sailing 
magnificently, while the Residency steam-launch, puffing 
and toiling, was scarcely holding her own against a heavy 
bead sea. 

Bushire, though it has a number of two-storied 
>uses and a population of 15,000, has a most insignifi- 
cant appearance, and lies so low that from the Assyria's 
' deck it gave the impression of being below the sea-leveL 
I The shamal was raising a sand storm in the desert beyond ; 
I the sand was drifting over it in yellow clouds, the moun- 
I tains which at a greater or less distance give a wild 
I Bublimity to the eastern shores of the Gulf were blotted 
VOL. I B 



2 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LBrrKB i 

out, and a blurred and windy shore harmonised mtli a 
blurred and windy sea. 

The ateam-launch, which after several baffled attempts 
succeeded in reaching the steamer's side, brought letters 
of welcome from Colonel Eoss, who for eighteen years has 
filled the office of British Resident in the Persian Gulf 
with so much ability, judgment, and tact as to have earned 
the respect and cordial esteem of Persians, Arabs, the 
mixed races, and Europeans alike. Of his kindness and 
hospitality there ia no occasion to write, for every stranger 
who visits the Gulf has large experience of both. 

The little hiunch, though going shorewards with the 
wind, was tossed about like a cork, sliipping deluges of 
spray, and it was bo cold and generally tumultuous, that 
it was a rehef to exchange the shallow, wind-lashed 
waters of the roadstead for the shelter of a projecting 
sea-wall below the governor's house. A cun-icle, with 
two iiery little Arab horses, took us over the low windy 
stretch of road which lies behind Busbire, through a part 
of the town and round again to the sea-shore, on which 
long yellow surges were breaking thunderously in drifta 
of creamy foam. The Piesidency, a large Persian house, 
with that sort of semi -fortified look which the lai^p 
Eastern houses are apt to have, is built round court- 
yards, and has a fine entrance, which was lined with weU- 
set-np men of a Bombay marine battahon. As is u^ual 
iu Persia and Turkey, the reception rooms, living rooms, 
and guest rooms are upstairs, opening on balconies, the 
lower part being occupied by tlie servants and as domestic 
offices. Good fires were a welcome adjunct to the genial 
hospitality of Colonel Eoss and hia family, for the mer- 
cury, which for the previous week had ranged from 84° 
to 93°, since the sum-ise of that day had dropped to 45°, 
and the cold, damp wind suggested an English February. 
Even tlie Eeaidency, thick as its walls are, was invaded 



LETTER 1 THE EXTERNALS OF BUSHIEE 3 

by sea sand, and penetrated by the bowlings and shriek- 
ings of the shamal and the low hiss at intervals of wind- 
blown spray. 

This miserable roadstead does a large trade,' though 
every bale and chest destined for the cities of the interior 
muEt be packed on mules' backs for carriage over the 
borrible and perilous kolah or rock ladders of the inter- 
vening mountain ranges. The chief caravan route in 
Persia starts from Bushii-e vid Shiraz, Isfahan, Kashan, 
and Kvlm, to Tihran. A loaded mule takes from tliirty 
to thirty-five days to Isfahan, and from Isfahan to 
Tihran from twelve to sixteen days, according to the 
state of the roads. 

Busbire doea not differ in appearance from an ordi- 
nary eastern town. Irregular and uncleanly alleys, dead 
mud walls, with here and there a low doorway, bazars 
in whicli the req^uirements of caravans are largely con- 
sidered, and in which most of the manufactured goods 
ate English, a great variety in male attire, some small 
mosques, a marked predominance of the Arab physiognomy 
and costume, and ceaseless strings of asses bringing skins 
of waf«r from wells a mile from the town, are my impres- 

' According to the retums for ISS9, the British tonnige entering the 
Boshin rosiiatead was 111,715 ont of 118,670 tosa, biiiI the importti from 
Britiih territory iniDUnted to a value of £744,018 out of jC79U,832. Tba 
eiporta from liiishire iu the aaiue yeur anioauted to £535,07S, that of 
optnD beiug largely on tho iucrflaBB. Among other things exported sre 
pbtachto DuCa, gum, RimondB, madder, wool, and cotton. Regarding gum, 
thflwus in tho Soudan have stTfct«d the supply of it, and Persia ieretpiiig 
the buieSt, large quantities now being collected frtun certain Bhruba, especi- 
ally front the wild almond, which abaunilB at high altitudes. The draw- 
[ back ia that Grewood and charcoal are beconiiog consequently dearer and 
•eat. The gum exported in 1889 was 7J72 cwta., as against 14,918 ill 
1S88, but the value was more than the same. 

The imports into Bushire, as comparing 1BB9 nitU 1SS8, have 
I ineicaseil by £214,180, and the exports by £147,892. The value of the 
ort of opium, chielly to Cliina, itas £231,621, as against £148,523 in 
I 1866. 



4 JOURNEYS IN PEBSIA leiteb i 

siona of the first Persian city that I have seen. The 
Persian element, however, except in officialism and the 
style of building, is not strong, the population being 
chiefly composed of " Gulf Arabs," There are nearly 
fifty European residents, including the telegraph staff 
and the representatives of firms doing a very lai^e busi- 
ness with England, the Persian Gulf Trading Company, 
Messrs. Hotz and Company, Messrs, Gray, Paul, and 
Company, and the British India Steam Navigation Com- 
pany, which has enormously developed the trade of the 
Gnlf. 

Bushire ia the great starting-point of travellers from 
India who desire " to go home through Persia " by Shiiaz 
and Persepolis. C'/iarmdars (muleteers) and the neces- 
sary outfit are obtainable, but even the kindness of the 
Resident fails to overcome the standing diflSculty of 
obtaining a Persian servant who is both capable and 
trustworthy. Having been forewarned by him not to 
trust to Buahire for this indispensable article, I had 
brought from India a Persian of good antecedents and 
character, who, desiring to return to his own country, was 
willing to act as my interpreter, courier, and sole attend- 
ant. Grave doubts of his ability to act in the two- 
latter capacities occurred to me before I left Karachi, 
grew graver on tlie voyage, and were quite confirmed as 
we tossed about in the Residency launch, where the 
" young Persian gentleman," as he styled himself, sat 
bolt upright with a despairing countenance, dressed in a 
tall hat, a beautifully made European suit, faultless tan 
boots, and snowy collar and cuffs, a man of truly refined 
feeling and manners, but liopelessly out of placa I 
pictured him helpless among the disJiabUli and roughnesses 
of a camp, and anticipated my insurmountable reluctance 
to ask of him menial service, and was glad to find that 
the same doubts had occurred to himself. 



I 
I 



am I HADJI 5 

I lost no time in interviewing Hadji, — a Gulf Arsb, 
who has served various travellers, has been ten times to 
Mecca, went to Windsor with the horses presented to the 
Queen by the Sultan of Muscat, speaks more or less of 
six langu^es, knows English fairly, has some recom- 
mendations, and professes that he is " up to " all the 
requirements of camp life. The next morning I engaged 
him as " man of all work," and though a big, wild-looking 
Arab in a rough abba and a big turban, with a. long 
knife and a revolver in his girdle, scarcely looks like a 
lady's servant, I hope he may suit me, though with these 
antecedents he is more likely to be a scamp than a 
treasure. 

The continuance of the shavial prevented the steamer 
from unloading in the exposed roadstead, and knocked 
the launch about aa we rejoined her. We called at 
the telegraph station at Fao, and brouglit off Dr. Bruce, 
the head of the Church Missionary Society's Mission at 
Julfa, whose long and intimate acquaintance with the 
country and people will make him a great acquisition on 
the Tigris. 

" About sixty miles above the bar outside the Shat- 
«1-Aiab " (the united Tigris and Euphrates), " forty miles 
above the entrance to that estuary at Fao. and twenty 
miles below the Turkish port of Basrah, the present 
main exit of the Earun river flows into the Shat-el- 
Arab from the north-east by an artificial channel, whose 
etymology testifies to its origin, the Hafiar " (dug-out) 
" canal. When this canal was cut, no one knows. . , . 
Where it flows into the Shat-el-Arab it is about a 
quarter of a mile in width, with a depth of from twenty 
to thirty feet. 

" The town of Mohammerah is situated a little more 
than a mile up tlie canal on its right bank, and is a 
filthy place, with about 2000 inhabitants, and consists 



9 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter i 

mainly of mud huts and hovels, backed by a superb 
fringe of date palms." ^ In the rose flush of a winter 
momiog we steamed slowly past this diplomatically 
famous confluence of the Haffar and Shat-el-Arab, at 
the angle of which tlie Persians have lately built a 
quay, a governor's house, and a large warehouse, in 
expectation of a trade which shows few signs of develop- 
ment 

A winter morning it was indeed, splendid and in- 
vigorating after the ferocious heat of the Gulf. To-day 
there has been frost ! 

The Shat-el-Arab is a noble river or estuary. From 
both its Persian and Turkish shores, however, mountains 
have disappeared, and dark forests of date palms inter- 
sected by canals fringe its margin heavily, and extend 
to some distance inland. The tide is strong, and such 
native boats as bdems, bnggalows, and dug-outs, loaded 
with natives and goods, add a cheerful element of busy 
life. 

"We anchored near Basrah, below the foreign settle- 
ment, and had the ignominy of being placed for twenty- 
four hours in quarautine, flying the degrading yellow 
flag, Basrah has just been grievously ravaged by the 
cholera, which has not only carried off three hundred of 
the native population daily for some time, but the British 
Vice-Consul and his children. Cholera still exists in 
Turkey while it is extinct in Bombay, and the imposition 
of quarantine on a ship with a " clean bill of health " 
seems devised for no other purpose than to extract fees, 
to annoy, and to produce a harassing impression of 
Turkish officialism. 

After this detention we steamed up to the anchorage, 
which is in front of a few large bungalows which lie 

' "Thfl Kanin River," Hon, G. Curzon, M.P,, Proetcdinga of R.O.S., 
8«ptember 1890. 



LBTTUii THE "CITY OF DATES" 7 

betweea tlie belt of palms and the river, and form the 
European settlement of MargiL A fever-haunted swamp, 
with no outlet but the river ; canals exposing at low 
water deep, impassable, and malodorous slime separating 
the bungalows; a climate which is damp, liot, malarious, 
and prostrating except for a few weeks in winter, and a 
total absence of all the resources and amenities of civili- 
sation, make Basrah one of the least desirable places to 
► which Europeans are exiled by the exigencies of com- 
merce. It is scarcely necessary to say that the few 
residents exercise unbounded hospitality, which is the 
most grateful memory which the stranger retains of the 
brief halt by the " River of Arabia." 

This is the dead season in the "city of dates," An 
unused river steamer, a large English trader, two Turkish 
ships-of-war painted white, the Mfjiduh, one of two 
English-owned steamers which are allowed to ply on the 

I Tigris, and the Assyria of the E.I.S.N. Co., constitute the 
fleet at anchor. As at Buahire, all cargo must be loaded and 
unloaded by boats, and crowds of native craft hanging 
on to the trading vessels give a little but not much 
vivacity. 
October, after the ingathering of the date harvest, is 
the busiest month here. The magnitude of the date 
industry may be gathered from the fact that in 1890, 
60,000 tons of dates were exported from Basrah, 20,000 
boxes, and the remainder in palm-leaf mats, one 
Kvessel taking 1800 tons. The quantity of wood imported 
for the boxes was 7000 tons in cut lengths, with iron 
Mping, nails, and oiled paper for inside wrapping, 
rought chiefly from England. 
A hundred trees can be grown on an acre of ground. 
The mature tree gives a profit of 4s., making the profit 
on an acre £20 annually. The Governor of Moham- 
merah haa lately planted 30,000 trees, and date palms to 



B JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettkb i 

the number of 60,000 have been recently planted on 
Persian soil. 

It is said that there are 160 varietiea of datea, but 
only a few are known to commerce. These great sombre 
date forests or " date gardens," which no sunshine can 
enliven, are ot course artificial, and depend upon 
irrigation. The palms are propagated by means of 
suckers taken from the female date. The young trees 
begin to bear when they are about five years old, reach 
maturity at nine, and may be prolific for two centuries. 
Mohammed said wisely, "Honour the palm, it is your 
paternal aunt." One soon learns here that it not only 
provides the people with nutritious food, but with build- 
ing materials, as well as with fuel, carpets, ropes, and 
mats. But it is the least beautiful of the palms, and 
the dark monotonous masses along the river contrast 
with my memories of the gmceful coco palm fringing the 
coral islands of the Pacific. 

I left the Assyria with regret The captain and 
officers had done all that intelligence and kindness could 
do to make the voyage an agreeable one, and were 
altogether successful On shore a hospitable reception, 
a good fiire, and New Year's Day come together appro- 
priately. The sky is clear and cloudless, and the air 
keen. The bungalows belonging to the European firms 
are dwelUng- houses above and offices below, and are 
surrounded by packing-yards and sheds for goods. In 
line with them are the Consulates. 

The ancient commercial glories of Basrah are too well 
known to need recapitulation. Circumstances are doing 
much to give it something of renewed importance. The 
modem Basrah, a town which has risen fiom a state of 
decay till it has an estimated population of 25,000, is 
on the right bank of the river, at some distance up a 
picturesque palm-fringed canal Founded by Omar soon 



» 



B I FELLOW. PASSENGERS 9 

after the death of Mohammed, and tossed like a shuttlecock 
between Turk and Persian, it is now definitely Turkish, 
and the great southern outlet of ChalilEa and Mesopo- 
tamia, as well as the port at which the goods passing to 
and from Baghdad " break bulk." A population more 
thoroughly polyglot could scarcely be found, Turks, Arabs, 
Sabeans, Syrians, Greeks, Hindus, Armenians, Frenchmen, 
Wahabees, Britons, Jews, Persians, Italians, and Africans, 
and there are even more creeds than races. 

S.S. Mejidieh, River Tigris, Jan. ^ — Leaving Basrah 
at 4 P.M. on Tuesday we have been stemming the strong 
flood of the Tigris for three bright winter days, in which 
to sit by a red-hot stove and sleep under a pile of 
blankets have been real luxuries after the torrid heat of 
the "Gulf," The party on board consists of Dr. Bruce, 
Mr, Hammond, who has been for some months pushing 
British trade at Shuster, the Assistant Quartermaster- 
General for India, a French-speaking Jewish merchant, 
the Hon. G, Curzon, M.P., and Mr. Swabadi, a Himgarian 
gentleman in the employment of the Tigris and Euphrates 

. Steam Navigation Company, a very scholarly man, who in 
the course of a long residence in Southern Turkey has 
acquainted himself intimately with the country and its 
peoples, and is ever ready to place his own stores of 
informatioa at our disposal. Mr. Curzon has been 
" prospecting " the Karun river, and came on board from 
the Shiis/uin, a small stern-wheel steamer with a carrying 
capacity of 30 tons, a draught when empty of 18 inclies, 
and when laden of from 24 to 36. She belongs to the 

. Messrs. Lynch Brothers, of the Tigris and Euphrates 
S.N. Co. They run her once a fortnight at a considerable 
loss between Mohammerah and Ahwaz, Her isolated 
position and diminutive size are a curious commentary 
on the flourish of trumpets and bleiher of exultation with 
■which the English newspapers announced the very poor 



I of leave to run steamers on the Karun be- 
tween the Shat-el-Arab and Ahwaz. 

[Since thia letter was written, things have taken rather 
a singular turn, and the development of trade on the 
Karun has partly fallen into the hands of a trading cor- 
poration of I'ersians, the Nasiri Company. By them, and 
under their representative partner, Haja Mahomad, a man 
of great energy, the formidable rapida at Ahwaz are being 
circumvented by the construction of a tramway 2400 
yards long, which is proceeding steadily. A merchants' 
caravanserai has already been built on the river bank 
at the lower landing-place and commencement of the 
tramway, and a bakery, butchery, and carpentry, along 
with a ca/^ and a grocery and general goods stores, have 
already been opened by men brought to Ahwaz by 
H. Mahomad. 

A river face wall, where native craft are to He, ia 
being constructed of hewn stone blocks and sections of 
circular pillars, remains of the ancient city. 

The A'asiri Company has a small steamer, the Nasiri, 
plying on the lower Karun, chiefly as a tug. taking up 
two Arab boats of twenty - seven tons each, lashed 
alongside of her. On her transference at the spring 
floods of this year to the river above Ahwaz, the Karun, 
a. steam launch of about si.tty tons, belonging to the 
Governor of Mohammerah, takes her place below, and 
a second steamer belonging to the same company is 
now running on the lower stream. Poles from 
Zanzibar have been distributed for a telegraph line 
from Mohammerah to Ahwaz. The Messrs. Lynch 
have placed a fine river steamer of 300 tons on the 
route ; but this enterprising firm, and English capitahsts 
generally, are being partially "cut out" by the singular 
"go" of this Persian company, which not only appears to 
have strong support from Government quarters, but has 



OOINQ AHEAD 



11 



I gained the cooperation of the well-known and wealthy 
I Sheikh Mizal, whoae personal influence in Arabiatan is 
I Tery great, and who has hitherto been an obstacle to the 
I'OpeQiiig of trade on the Karun. 

A great change for the better has taken place in the 

Kicircumstances of the population, and villages, attracted by 

■ trade, are springing up, which the Nasiri Company is 

I doing its best to encourage. The land-tax is very light, 

I and the cultivators are receiving every encouragement. 

l-Mucb wheat was exported last year, and there is a brisk 

I demand for river lands on leases of sixty years for the 

I cultivation of cotton, cereals, sugar-cane, and date palms. 

Persian soldiers all have their donkeys, and at Ahwaz 

Pa brisk and amusing competition is going on between the 

soldiers of a fine regiment stationed there and the Arabs 

for the transport of gooda past the rapids, and for the 

conveyance of tramway and building materials. This 

[■ competition is enabling goods to pass the rapids cheaply 

ind expeditiously. 

One interesting feature connected with these works is 
he rapidly increased well-being of the Arabs. In less 
ihao a year labour at 1 kran (8d.) a day has put quite a 
smmber of them in possession of a pair of donkeys and 
" s plough, and seed-corn wherewith to cnltivate Govern- 
ment lands on their own account, besides leaving a small 
balance in hand on which to live without having to 
rborrow on the coming crop at frightfully usurious rates. 
Until now the sheikhs have been able to command 
labour for little more than the poorest food ; and now 
lany of the very poor who depended on them have started 
a small farmers, and things are rapidly changing. 

The careful observer, from whose report on Persia to 
} Foreign Office, No. 207, I have transferred the fore- 
ping facte, wrote in January 1891 : "It was a sight to 
e the whole Arab population on the river banks hard 



12 JOURNErs IN PERSIA litttih i 

at work taking advantage of the copious rain which 
had juat fallen ; every available animal fit for draught 
was yoked to the plough — horses, mules, bullocks, and 
donkeys, and even mares, with their foala following them 
up the furrows." 

This, which is practically a Persian opening of the 
trade of the Kamn, is not what was expected, however 
much it was to be desired. After a journey of nine 
months through Persia, I am strongly of opinion that if 
the Empire is to have a solid and permanent resurrection, 
it must be through the enterprise of Persians, aided it 
may be by foreign skill and capital, though the less of 
the latter that is employed the more hopefully I should 
regard the Persian future. The Ifasiri Company and the 
Messrs. Lynch may possibly unite, and the New Boad 
Company may join with them in making a regular trans- 
port service by river and road to Tihran, by which 
England may pour her manufactured goods even into 
Northern Persia, as this route would compete success- 
fully both with the Baghdad and Trebizond routes. 

Already, owing to the improved circumstances of the 
people, the import of Eughah and Indian cotton goods 
and of sugar has increased; the latter, which is French, 
from its low price, only 2^d. a pound in the Gulf, puahing 
its way as far north as Sultanabad, Unfortunatfily the 
shadow of Bussia hangs over the future of Persia.] 

At present two English and four Tiu-kish boats run 
on the Tigria. They are necessarily of light draught, as 
the river is shallow at certain seasons and is full of 
shifting sand-banks. The Mejidich is a comfortable boat, 
with a superabundance of excellent food. Her saloon, 
state-rooms, and engines are on the main deck, which is 
open fore and aft, and has above it a fine hurricane deck, 
on the fore part of which the deck pasaengere, a motley 
crowd, encamp. She is fully loaded with British goods. 



LETTER I THE "GABDEN OF EDEN" 13 

The first object of passing interest was Kornah, 
reputed among the Arabs to be the site of the Garden of 
Eden, a tougue of land at the junction of the Tigris and 
Euphrates. The " Garden of Eden " contains a village, 
and bright fires burned in front of the mat -and -mud 
houses. Women in red and white, and turbaned men in 
brown, flitted across the firelight; there was a mass of 
v^etatioE, chiefly palms with a number of native vessels 
moored to their sterna, and a leaning minaret. A frosty- 
moonlight glorified tlie broad, turbid waters, Kornah and 
the Enphrates were left in shadow, and we turned up the 
glittering waterway of the Tigris. The night was too 
keeidy frosty for any dreams of Paradise, even in this 
cUssic Chaldsea, and under a sky blazing down to the 

► level horizon with the countless stars which were not to 
outnumber the children of " Faithful Abraham." 
Four hours after leaving Kornah we passed the 
reputed tomb of Ezra the prophet. At a distance and 
in the moonlight it looked handsome. There is a but- 
tressed river wall, and above it some long flat-roofed 
buildings, the centre one surmounted by a tiled dome. 
The Tigris is so fierce and rapid, and swallows its alluvial 
baolcs so greedily, that it is probable that some of the 
buildings described by the Hebrew traveller Benjamin of 
Tudela as existing in the twelfth century were long since 
carried away. The tomb is held in great veneration not 
w only by Jews and Moslems but also by Oriental Chris- 
B tians. It is a great place of Jewish pilgrimage, and is so 
^venerated by the Arabs that it needs no guard.^ 

^^A ' Sir A. U. Layord describes the interior of iLe domed building u 

^^bniisting af two clmmbvrs, the outer oue emptj', and the inner one 

^^BaUining the Prophet's tomb, built ot bricks covered nith nhite stucco, 

^^Vld cneloaed in t. wooden case or srl:, avuT which is thrown a large blue 

elotb, fringed with yellow taasela, the name of the donor beiug inscribed 

in Hebrew characters n{)on it. — Lsyard's Early Adecnturts, vol. i. 

p. S14. • 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA ijnrM I 

Hadji brought my breakfast, or as he called it, " the 
grub," the next morning, and I contemplated the Son of 
Abraham with some astonishment. He had discarded 
his turban and abba, and looked a regular uncivilised 
desert Ishmaelite, with knives and rosaries iu his belt, 
and liis head muffled in a M^iyek, a yellow silk shawl 
striped with red, with one point and tassels half a yard 
long hanging down hia back, and fastened round his head 
by three coils of camel's-hair rope. A loose coat with a 
gay girdle, "breeks" of some kind, loose boots turned up 
at the toes and reaching to the knees, and a striped under- 
garment sliowing here and there, completed his costume. 

The view from the hurricane deck, though there are 
no striking varieties, is too novel to be monotonous. The 
level plains of Chaldaia, only a few feet higher than the 
Tigris, stretch away to the distant horizon, unbroken 
until to-day, when low hills, white with the first snows 
of winter, are softly painted on a pure blue sky, very far 
away. The plains are buff and brown, with an occasional 
splash, near villages as buff and brown as the soil out of 
which they rise, of the dark-green of date gardens, or the 
vivid green of winter wheat With the exception of these 
gardens, which are rarely seen, the vast eapanse is un- 
broken by a tree. A few miserable shrubs there are, 
the mimosa agresiis or St. , John's bread, and a scrubby 
tamarisk, while liquorice, wormwood, capers, and some 
alkaline plants which camels love, are recognisable even 
in their withered condition. 

There are a few ^'illages of low mud hovels enclosed 
by square mud walls, and hamlets of mat huts, the mats 
being made of woven sedges and flags, strengthened by 
palm fronds, but oftener by the tall, tough stems of 
growing reeds bent into arches, and woven together by 
the long leaves of aquatic plants, chiefly rushes. The 
hovels, so ingeniously constructed, are share4 indis- 



THE MESOPOTAMIAN FLATS 15 

criminately by the Arabs and their animals, and crowds 
of women and children emerged from them as we passed. 
Each village has its arrangement for raising water from 
^.tiie tiver. 

Boats under sail, usually a fleet at a time, hurry down- 
litream, owing more to the strong current than to the 
r breeze, or are hauled up laboriously against both by their 
(Arab crews. 

The more distant plain is sparsely sprinkled with 

lolusters of brown tents, long and low, and is dotted over 

[■with flocks of large brown sheep, shepherded by Arabs in 

r Idffiyehs, each shepherd armed with a long gun slung over 

his shoulder. Herds of cattle and strings of camels move 

filowly over the brown plain, and companies of men on 

horseback, with long guns and lances, gallop up to the 

L liver bank, throw their fiery horses on their haunches, 

B'ftnd after a moment of gratified curiosity wheel round 

■and gallop back to the desert from which they came. 

I Occasionally a Stretch of arable land is being ploughed 

mnp by small bulfaloes with most primitive ploughs, but 

B'tlie plains are pastoral chiefly, tents and flocks are their 

Bichie! features — features whicli have changed little since 

Ki^e great Sheikh Abraham, whose descendants now people 

Kthem, left his " kindred " in the not distant Ur of the 

■Chaldees, and started on the long march to Canaan. 

■> Keedy marshes, alive with water- fowl, arable lands, 

tl>are butf plains, brown tents, brown flocks, mat huts, 

mud and brick villages, groups of women and children, 

flights of armed horsemen, alternate rapidly, — the 

^unchanging features are the posts and wires of the 

telegraph. 

The Tigris in parts is wonderfully tortuous, and at 
line great bend, " The Devil's Elbow," a man on foot can 
iralk the distance in less tlian an hour which takes the 
earner four hours to accomplish. The current is very 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letteb I 

strong, and the slow progress is rendered slower at this 
season of low water by the frequent occurrence of sand- 
banks, of which one is usually made aware by a jolt, it 
grinding sound, a cessation of motion, some turns astern, 
and then full speed ahead, which often overcomes the 
obstacle. Some hours' delay and the floats of one paddle- 
wheel injured were the most serious disasters brought 
about ; and in spite of the shallows at this season, the 
Tigris is a noble river, and the voyage is tnily fascinating. 
Not that there are many remarkable objects, but the 
desert atmosphere and the desert freedom are in them- 
selves delightful, the dust and debris are the dust and 
dibris of mighty empires, and there are conntless 
associations with the earliest past of which we have any 
records. 

Aimarah, a rising Turkish town of about VOOO people, 
built at a point where the river turns at a sharp angle 
to the left, is interesting as showing what commerce can 
create even here, in less than twenty years. A caravan 
route into Persia was opened and Aimarah does a some- 
what busy trade. Flat-faced brick buildings, with pro- 
jecting lattice windows, run a good way along the left 
bank of the river, which is so steep and irregular that 
the crowd which thronged it when the steamer made 
fast was shown to great advantage — Osmanlis, Greeks, 
Persians, Sabeans, Jews of great height and superb 
physique, known by much-tasselled turbans, and a pre- 
dominating Arab element. 

We walked down the long, broad, covered bazar, 
with a broken water channel in the middle, where there 
were crowds, solely of men, meat, game, bread, fruit, 
grain, lentils, horse - shoes, pack saddles, Manchester 
cottons, money-changers, silversmiths, and scribes, and 
heard the roar of business, and the thin shouts of boys 
unaccustomed to the sight of European women. The 



LBTTEHi "CHRISTIANS OF ST, JOHN" 17 

crowds pressed and followed, picking at mj; clothes, and 
singing snatches of songs which were not complimentary. 
It had not occurred to me that I was violating rigid 
custom in appearing in a hat and gauze veil rather than 
in a chadar and face cloth, but the mistake was made 
nnpleasantly apparent. In Moslem towns woraeu go 

I about in companies and never walk with men. 

We visited an enclosed square, where there are 
barracks for zaptieha (gendarme.^), the Kadi's court, and 
the prison, which consists of an open grating like that 
of a menagerie, a covered space behind, and dark cells 
or dens opening upon it, all better than the hovels of 
the peasantry. There were a number of prisoners well 
clothed, and apparently well fed, to whom we were an 
obvious diversion, but the guards gesticulated, shouted, 
and brandiahed their side-arms, making us at last 

\ understand that our presence in front of the grating was 
forbidden. After seeing a large barrack yard, and 
walking, still pursued by a crowd, round the forlorn out- 
skirts of Aimarah, which include a Sabean village, we 

. visited the gold and silversmiths' shops where the Sabeans 
rere working at their craft, of wliich in this region they 
«ve nearly a monopoly, not only settling teniporarily 
1 tbe towus, but visiting the Arab encampments on the 
lains, where they are always welcome as the makers and 
repairers of the ornaments with which the women are 
ided. These craftsmen and others of the race whom 
[ have seen differ greatly from the Arabs in appearance, 
wing white rather than brown, very white, i.e. very pale, 
rith jet-black hair ; large, gentle, intelligent eyes ; small, 
straight noses, and small, well-formed mouths. The 
handsome faces of these " Christians of St. John " are 

■very pleasing in their expression, and there was a 
inty cleanliness about their persons and white cloth- 
ificant of those frequent ablutions of both which 




are so remarkable a part of their religion. The children 
at Aimarah, and generally in the riparian villages, wear 
very handsome chased, convex silver links, each as large 
as the top of a breakfast cup, to fasten their girdles. 

The reedy marshes, the haunts of pelicans and pigs, 
are left behind at Aimarah, and' tamarisk scrub and 
liquorice appear on the banks. At Kiit-al-Ainjarah, a 
small military post and on Arab town of snn-drieii 
bricks on the verge of a high bank above the Tigris, 
we landed again, and ragamuffin boys pressed very 
much upon us, and ragamuffin zciptieha,'' grotesquely 
dressed in clothes of different European nationalities, 
pelted them with stones. To take up stones and throw 
them at imwelcome visitors ia a frequent way of getting 
rid of them in the less civilised parts of the East 

A zaptieh station, barracks, with a large and badly- 
kept parade ground, a covered bazar well supplied, houses 
with blank walls, large ca/ds with broad matted benches, 
asafcetida, crowds of men of superb physique, picturesque 
Arabs on high-bred horses, and a total invisibility of 
women, were the salient features of Kut-al-Aimaiah, 
Big - masted, h%h - stemmed boats, the broad, turbid 
Tigris with a great expanse of yellowish sand on its 
farther shore, reeds " shaken with the wind," and a windy 
sky, heavily overcast, made up the view from the bank. 
There were seen for the first time by the new-comers 
the most venerable boats in the world, for they were old 
even when Herodotus mentions them — hi/as or gophers, 
very deep round baskets covered with bitumen, with 
incurved tops, and worked by one man with a paddle. 
These remarkable tubs are used for the conveyance of 
passengers, goods, and even animals. 

' A yesr Inter in Kurdiatan, the oipiie/u, all time-expired soldiera and wall 
Bet Qp soldierly men, wore neat, serviceable, dark blue bruded tmifonna, 
and high HdiDg^Iioota. 



TM8I AN ANCIENT BOAT 19 

Before leaving we visited the Arab Khan or Sheikh 

in his house. He received us in an upper room of 

. difficult access, carpeted with very handsome rugs, and 

I with a divan similarly covered, but the walls of brown 

mud were not even plastered. His manner was dignified 

; and courteous, and his expression remarkably shrewd. 

A number of men sitting on the tioor represented by 



,?.f^.^. 




their hau<^hty aspect and ma«niticeut phygique the 
loyalty of the lahmaeUt* descent from Abraham. This 
Khan said that his tribe could put 3000 fighting men 
into the field, but it was obvious that its independence 
ia broken, and that these tribal warriors are reckoned 

Osmanli irregulars or Bashi Bazouks. The Khan 
remarked that " the English do not make good friends, 
lor," he added, " they back out when difficulties arise." 

On board the steamer the condition of tlie Arabs is 



20 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettkb i 

much discussed, and the old residents describe it as 
steadily growing worse under the oppression and corrup- 
tion of the Osmanli officials, who appear to be doing 
their best to efface these fine riparian tribes by merciless 
exactions coming upon the top of taxation so hea\7 
as to render agriculture unprofitable, the impositions 
actually driving thousands of them to seek a living in 
the cities and to the Persian shores of the Gulf, where 
they exchange a life of hereditary freedom for a pre- 
carious and often scanty subsistence among unpropitious 
surroundings. Still, the Arab of the desert is not con- 
quered by the Turks. 



MESOPOTAMIA^ AGRICULTURE 



LETTER I (Ctmtinued) 

Baobdad, Jan. 5. 
The last day ou the Tigris passed as pleasantly as its 
' predecessors. There was raiu in the early morning, 
then froat which froze the rain on deck, and at 7 A.M. 
the mercury in uiy cabin stood at 28°. 

In the aftenioon the country became more populous, 

at is, there were Icraah of mat huts at frequent 

htervals, and groups of tents to which an external wall 

f mats gave a certain aspect of permanence. Increased 

I cultivation accompanied the increased population. In 

Bsome places the ground was being scratched with a 

E^imitive plough of unshod wood, or a branch of a tree 

Itlightly trimmed, leaving a scar about two inches deep. 

ftTfaeae scars, which pass for furrows, are about ten inches 

tapart, and camel thorn, tamarisk, and other shrubs 

■immical to crops stand between them. The seed is now 

sown. After it comes up it grows apace, and 

1 spite of shallow scratches, camel thorn, and tamarisk 

ihe tilth is so luxuriant that the husbandmen actually 

1 cattle and sheep into it for two or three weeks, and 

len leave it to throw up the ear ! They say that there 

} from eighteen to thirty-five stalks from each seed in 

wnsequence of this process ! The harvest is reaped in 

, after which water covers the land. 

Another style of cultivation is adopted for land, of 

jrliich we saw a good deal, very low lying, and annually 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



overflnived, usually surrounding a nucleus of permanent 
mursh. Tliia landj after the water dries up, is destitute 
of vegetation, and presents a smooth, moist surface full 
of cracks, which scales off later. No scratching is 
needed for this soil. The seed is sown broadcast over 
it, and such of it as is not devoured by birds falls into 
the cracks, and produces an abundant crop. All this rich 
alluvial soil is stoncless, but is strewn from Seleucia 
to Babylon with fragments of glass, bricks, and pottery. 
Artificial mounds also abound, and remains of canals, all 
denoting that these fertile plains in ancient days sup- 
ported a large stationary population. Of all that once 
was, this swirling ri\'er alone remains, singing in every 
eddy and ripple — 



"For 



But I go 






a moy go, 



As we were writing in the evening we were nearly 
thrown off our cbuirs by running aground with a thump, 
which injured one paddle wheel and obliged us to lie up 
part of the night for repairs near the ruins of the ancient 
palace of Ctesiphon. Seleucia, on the right bank of the 
river, is little more now than a historic name, but the 
palace of Tak-i-Kaar, with its superb archway 100 
feet in height, has been even in recent times mag- 
nificent enough in its ruin to recall the glories of the 
Parthian kings, and the days when, according to Gibbon. 
" Khosroes Nushirwan gave audience to the ambassadors 
of the world " within its stately walls. Its gaunt and 
shattered remains have even still a mournful grandeur 
about them, but they have suffered so severely from the 
barbarous removal of the atones and the fall of much of 
the front as to be altogether disappointing. 

Soon after leaving Ctesiphon there is increased cul- 
tivation, and within a few miles of Baghdad the banks 



of the river, which is its great high road, become 
populous. " Palatial residences," in which the women's 
apartments are indicated by the blankness of their walls, 
:are mixed up with mud hovels and goat'a-liair tents; 
there are large farmhouses with enclosures for cattle and 
, horses; date gardens and orange groves fringe the 
stream, and arrangements for drawing water are let into 
its banks at frequent intervals. Strings of asses laden 
with country produce, companies of horsemen and in- 
liuraerable foot passengers, aU moved citywards. 

The frosty sun rose out of an orange sky as a disc 
of blood and flame, but the morniug became misty and 
overcast, so that the City of the Arabian Nights did not 
turst upon the view in any Iialo of splendour. A few 
tiled minarets, the blue domes of certain mosques, 
handsome houses, — ^ome of them European Cousulates, 
half hidden by orange groves laden with their golden 
fruiti^e, — a picturesque bridge of boats, a dense growth 
of palms on the right bank, beyond which gleam the 
£olden domes of Kazimain and the top of Zobeide's tomb, 
the superannuated British gun-boat Comd, two steamers, 
a crowd of native craft, including kti/as or gophers, a 
prominent Custom-house, aud decayed alleys openuig on 
the water, make up the Baghdad of the present as seen 
from the Mejidieh's deck. 

As soon as we anchored swarms of kufas clustered 
round us, and swarms of officials and hamnls (porters) 
invaded the deck. Some of the passengers bad landed 
two hours before, others had proceeded to their destina- 
-tions at once, and as my friends had not come off I was 
.alone for some time in the middle of a tremendous 
Babel, in which every man shouted at the top of his 
Toice and all together, Hadji assuming a deportment of 
childish helplessness. Certain officials under cover of 
hribes lavished on my behalf by a man who spoke 



84 JOlTRNEyS IN PERSIA letter i 

English professed to let my baggage pass unopened, 
then a higher official with a sword knocked Hadji 
down, then a man said that everything would be all 
right if I would bestow another gold lira, aboat XI. 
on the officers, and I was truly glad when kind Cap- 
tain Dougherty with Dr. Sutton came alongside in the 
Comet's boat, and brought me ashore The baggage was 
put into another of her boats, but as soon as we were out 
of sight it was removed, and was taken to the Custom- 
house, where they insisted that some small tent poles iu 
a cover were guns, and smsished a box of dates in the 
idea that it was tobacco ! 

The Church Jlissioii House, in which I am receiv- 
ing hospitality, is a " native " house, though built and 
decorated by Persians, as also are several of the Con- 
sulates. It is iu a narrow roadway with blank walls, a 
part of the European quarter ; a door of much strength 
admits into a small courtyard, rouud which are some of 
the servants' quarters and reception rooms for Moslem 
visitors, and witliiu this again is a spacious and hand- 
some courtyard, round which are kitchens, domestic 
offices, and the set-dabs, which play an important part in 
Eastern life. 

These serdabs are semi-subterranean rooms, usually 
with arched fronts, filled in above-ground with lattice- 
work. They are lofty, and their vaulted roofs are 
supported in rich men's houses on pillars. Tlie well of 
the household is often found within. The general effect 
of this one is that of a crypt, and it was most appropriate 
for the Divine Service in English which greeted my 
arrival. The cold of it was, however, frightful. It was 
only when the Holy Communion was over that I found 
that I was wearing Hadji's revolver and cartridge belt 
under my cloak, which he had begged me to put on to 
save them from confiscation ! In these vaulted chambers 



EK I • THE CHURCH MISSION HOUSE 25 

' both Europeans aad natives spend the hot season, sleeping 
Bt night on the roofs. 

Above this lower Hoor are the winter apartnientB, 

' which open upoe a fine stone balcony running round 

three sides of the court. On the river side of the house 

there is an orange garden, which just now might be the 

garden of the Hesperidea, and a terrace, below which is 

the nohle, swirling Tigris, and beyond, a dark belt of 

palms. These rooms on the river front have large 

' projecting windows, six in a row, with screens which 

I slide np and down, and those which look to the court- 

I yard are secluded by very beautiful fretwork. The 

drawing-room, used as a dormitory, is a superb room, 

I in which exquisitely beautiful ceiling and wall decorations 

shades of fawn enriched with gold, and fretwork 

i windows, suggest Oriental feeling at every turn. The 

I plaster-work of this room is said to be distinctively 

L Persian and is very charming. The house, though large, 

■ Is inconveniently crowded, with t)ie medical and clerical 
I mission famihes, two lady missionaries, and two guests. 

■ £ach apartment has two rows of vaulted recesses in its walls, 
I and very fine cornices above. It is impossible to warm 
I the rooms, but the winter is very short and brilliant, 
I.Bnd after ulsters, greatcoats, and fur cloaks have been 

a for breakfast, the sun mitigates the temjierature. 
I. L. B. 



JOURNEYS IX PERSrA 



Bagbdad, Jan. 9. 

Baghdad is too well known from the careful descrip- 
tiona given of it by Eastern travellers to justify me in 
lingering upon it iu detail, and I will only record a few 
impressions, which are decidedly couleur de rose., for the 
weather is splendid, making locomotion a pleasure, and 
the rough, irregular roadways which at other seasons are 
deep in foul and choking dust, or in mud and pestilential 
slime, are now firm and not remarkably dirty. 

A little earlier than this the riclier inhabitants, who 
have wardled through the summer in their dim and 
latticed serdabs, emerge and pitch their tents in the 
plains of Ctesiphon, where the men find a stimulating 
amusement in bunting the boar, hut it is now the "' season " 
in the city, the liveliest and busiest time of the year. 
The cholera, which is believed to have claimed 6000 
victims, has departed, and the wailing of the women, 
which scarcely ceased day or night for a month, is silent. 
The Jewish troubles, which apparently rose out of the 
indignation of the Moslems at the burial within the gates, 
contrary to a strict edict on the subject, of a Eabbi who 
died of cholera, have subsided, and the motley popula- 
tions and their yet more motley creeds are for the time 
Bt peace. 

In the daytime there is a roar or hum of business, 
mingled with braying of aaaes, squeals of belligerent 



a THE TIGRIS 27 

horses, 3'ells of camel-drivers and muleteers, beating of 
drums, shouts of beggars, lioarse-toned ejaculations of 
fakirs, ear-splitting snatches of discordant music, and 
in short a chorus of sounds unfamiliar to Westfim ears, 
bnt the nights are so still that the swirl of the Tigris 
as it hurries past is distinctly heard. Only the long 
melancholy call to prayer, or the wail of women over the 
dead, or the barking of dogs, breaks the silence which at 
snnset falls as a pall over Baghdad 

Under the blue sunny sky the river view is very fine. 
Tlie river itself is imposing from its breadth and volume, 
land in the gorgeous sunsets, with a sky of crimson 
flame, and the fronds of the dark date palms mirrored in 
its reddened waters, it looks really beautiful The city 
a stately enough as far as the general coup-d:ceil of the 
liver front goes, and its river fii^de agreeably surprises 
The Tigris, besides being what may be called the 
main street, divides Baghdad into two unequal parts, and 
though the city on the left bank has almost a monopoly 
of picturesque and somewhat stately irregularity in the 
houses of fair height, whose lattices and oriel windows 
overhang tlie , stream from an environment of orange 
fprdens, the dark date groves dignify the meaner 
buildings of the right bank. The rush of a great river is 

itself attractive, and from the roof of this house the 
riew is fascinating, with the ceaseless movements of 
liiudreds of boats and hifas, the constant traffic of men, 
asses, and caravans across the great bridge of 
boats, and the long lines of buildings which with more or 

9 picturesque ness line the great waterway. 

"Without the wearisomeness of sight-seeing there is 

dnuch to be seen in Baghdad, and though much that 

^ would be novel to a new-comer from the West is familiar 

to me after two years of Eastern travel, tliere is a great 

deal that is really interesting. The htfas accumulating 



28 JOUHNEVS IN PERSIA leitbb n 

at their landing, freighted with the products of the Upper 
Tigris, the transpontine city, in which country produce 
takes the foremost place ; the tramway to Kazimain con- 
structed during the brief valiship of Midhat Pasha, on 
which the last journey of the day is always performed at 
a gallop, co^r qiic coHtc ; the caravans of asses, each one 
with a huge fish, the " Fish of Tobias," hanging across its 
back ; the strings of the same humble animal, carrying 
skins of water from the river throughout the city ; tbe 
tombs, the mosques, the churcJies, the great caravans of 
mules and camels, almost monopolising the narrow road- 
ways, Arabs and Osmanlia on showy horses, Persians, 
Turks, Arabs, Jews, Armenians, 'CbaldEeans, in all the 
variety of their picturesque national costumes, to which 
the niggardly clothing of a chance European acts as an 
ungraceful foil ; Persian dead, usually swaddled, making 
their last journey on mule or horseback to the holy 
ground at Kerbela, and the occasional march of horse or 
foot through the thronged bazars, are among tbe hourly 
sights of a city on which European influence is scarcely 
if at all perceptible. 

Turkish statistics must be received with caution, and 
the population of Baghdad may not reach 120,000 souls, 
but it has obviously recovered wonderfully from the 
effects of war, plague, inundation, and famine, and looks 
busy and fairly prosperous, so much so indeed that the 
account given of its misery and decay in Mr. Baillie 
Fraser's charming Travels in Kurdistan reads like a story 
of the last century. If nothing remains of the glories of 
the city of the Caliphs, it is certainly for Turkey a buay, 
growing, and passably wealthy nineteenth-century capital 
It is said to have a hundred mosques, twenty-six minarets, 
and fifteen domes, but I have not counted them 1 

Its bazara, which many people regard as the finest in 
the East outside of Stamboul, are of enormous extent and 



nn BAGHDAD BAZARS 39 

very gi'eat variety. MaDy are of brick, with well-built 
domed roofs, and sides arcaded both above and below, 
and are wide and airy. Some are of wood, all are 
covered, and admit light scantily, oidy from the roof. 
Those which supply the poorer classes are apt to be 
ruinous and squalid — " ramshacMe" to say the truth, 
with an air of decay about them, and their roofs are 
merely rough timber, roughly thatched with reeda or 
date tree fronds. Of splendour there is none anywhere, 
and of cleanliness there are few traces. Tlie old, narrow, 
and filthy bazars in which the gold and silversmiths ply 
their trade are of all the most interesting. The trades 
have their separate localities, and the buyer who is in 
search of cotton goods, silk stuffs, carpets, cotton yam, 
gold and silver thread, ready-made clothing, weapons, 
saddlery, rope, fruit, meat, grain, fiah, jewellery, muslins, 
copper pots, etc., has a whole alley of contiguous shops 
devoted to the sale of the same article to choose from. 

At any hour of daylight at this season progress 
through the bazars is alow, They are crowded, and 
almost entirely with men. It is only the poorer women 
who market for themselves, and in twos and threes, at 
certain hours of the day. In a whole afternoon, among 
thousands of men, I saw only five women, tall, shapeless, 
badly -made -up bundles, carried mysteriously along, 
rather by high, loose, canary-yellow leather boots than 
by feet. The face is covered with a thick black gauze 
mask, or cloth, and the head and remainder of the form 
with a dark blue or black sheet, which is clutched by 
the hand below the nose. The walk is one of tottering 
decrepitude. All the business transacted in the bazars is 
a matter of bargaining, and as Arabs shout at the top of 
their voices, and buyers and sellers are equally keen, the 
roar is tremendous. 

Great caf6s, as in Cairo, occur frequently. In the 



larger ones from a hundred to two hundred men are seec 
lounging at one time on the broad matted seata, shouting, 
cliaifering, drinking coffee or sfiarbal and smoking ehihouk* 
or kalians. Negro attendants supply their wants. Tliese 
ea/is are the clubs of Baghdad, Whatever of public 
opinion exists in a country where the recognised use ol' 
words is to " conceal thought," is formed in them. They 
are centres of business likewise, and much of the noise is 
due to bargaining, and they are also manufactories of 
rumours, scandals, and fanaticism. The great caravan- 
serais, such as the magnificent Khan Othman, are also 
resorts of merchants for the display and sale of their 
goods. 

Europeans never make purchases in the baxars. 
They either have the goods from which they wish to 
make a choice brought to their houses, or their servants 
bargain for them, getting a commission both from buyer 
and seller. 

The splendour of the East, if it exists at all, is not 
to be seen in the bazars. The jewelled daggers, the cloth 
of silver and gold, the diaphanous silk tissues, the brocaded 
silks, the rich embroideries, the damascened sword blades, 
the finer carpets, the inlaid armour, the cunning work in 
brass and inlaid bronze, and all the articles of wrfit and 
bric-d-brac of real or spurious value, are carefully con- 
cealed by their owners, and are carried for display, with 
much secrecy and mystery, to the houses of their ordinary 
customers, and to such European strangers as are reported 
to be willing to be victimised. 

Trade in Baghdad is regarded by Europeans and 
large capitalists as growing annually more depressed 
and unsatisfactory, but this is not the view of the 
small traders, chiefly Jews and Christians, who start 
with a capital of £5 or upwards, and by buying some 
cheap lot in Bombay, — gay handkerchiefs, perfumeiy. 



THE " FISH OF TOBIAS " 



31 



shoes, socks, buttons, tin boxes with mirror lids, scissors, 
pocktit- knives, toys, and the like, — bid fair to make 
small fortunea The amount of perfumery and rubbish 
piled in these ramshackle shops is wonderful. The 
trader who picks up a desert Arab for a customer and 
Bells him a knife, or a mirror box, or a packet of 
candles is likely to attract to himself a large trade, 
for when once the uumastered pastoral hordes of Al 
Jazira, Trak, and Stramiya see such objects, the desire 
f possession is aroused, and the refuse of Manchester and 
iBinningham will find its way into every tent in the 
desert. 

The best bazars are the least crowded, though once 
_j them it is difficult to move, and the strings of asses 
!laden with skins of water are a great nuisance. The 
foot-passenger is also liable at any moment to be ridden 
down by horsemen, or squeezed into a jelly by the 
ige of caravans. 

It is in the meat, vegetable, cotton, oil, grain, fruit, 
and fish bazars that the throngs are busiest and noisiest, 
and though cucumbers, the great juy of the Turkish palate, 

; over, vegetables " of sorts " are abundant, and the 
slant, broken sunbeams fall on pyi'amids of fruit, and 
glorify the warm colouring of melons, apples, and pome- 
grsnates, 

A melon of 10 Iba. weight can be got for a penny, 
', eheep for five or six shillings, and fish for something 
like a farthing per pound, that is the " Fish of Tobias," 
■ the nioUHter of the Tigris waters, which is lai^ely eaten 
by the poor. Poultry and game are also very cheap, and 
the absolute necessaries of life, such as broken wheat for 
'.porridge, oil, flour, and cheese, cost little. 

Cook-shops abound, but their viands are not tempting, 
and the bazars are pervaded by a pungent odour of hot 
^esamuni oil and rancid fat, frying being a usual mode 



JOURNEYS IN PERSU letteb n 

of cooking in these reataurants. An impassive Turk, 
silently smoking, sits cross-legged on a platform at each 
Turkish shop door. He shows his goods as if he had no 
intertjst in them, and whether he sells or not seems a 
matter of indifference, so that he can return to his pipe. 
It is not to him that the overpowering din is owing, but 
to the agitated eagerness of the other nationalities. 

The charm of the bazars lies in the variety of race 
and costume and in the splendid phgsiquc of the greatei 
number of the men. The European looks "nowhere." 
The natural look of a Moslem ia one of haiUmr, but no 
words can describe the scorn and lofty Pharisaism which 
sit on the faces of the Seyyids, the descendants of Mo- 
hammed, whose hands and even garments are kissed ^eve^ 
ently as they pass through the crowd ; or the wrathful 
melancholy mixed with pride which gives a fierceness M 
the dignified bearing of the magnificent beings who glide 
through the streets, their white turbans or shawl head- 
gear, their gracefully ilowing robes, their richly em- 
broidered under-vests, their Kashmir girdles, their inlaid 
pistols, their silver-hilted dirks, and the predominance 
of red throughout their clothing aiding the general effect 
Yet most of these grand creatures, with their lofty looks 
and regal stride, would be accessible to a bribe, and 
would not despise even a perquisite. These are the 
■mollahs, the scribes, the traders, and the merchants of the 
city. 

The Bedouin and the city Arabs dress differently, and 
are among the marked features of the streets. The under- 
dress is a very coarse shirt of unbleached homespun 
cotton, rarely clean, over wliich the Sheikhs and richer 
men wear a robe of striped silk or cotton with a Kashmir 
girdle of a shawl pattern in red on a white ground. The 
poor wear shirts of coarse hair or cotton, without a roba 
The invariable feature of Arab dress is the ahha — a long. 



1 



LETTER II ARAB COSTUME 33 

cloak, sleevelesa, but with holes through which to pass 
the arms, and capable of many adaptations. It conceals 
all superabundance and deficiency of attire, and while it 
has the dignity of the toga by day it has the utility of a 
blanket by night. The better-class ahba is very hard, 
being made of closely-woven worsted, in broad brown and 
white or black and white perpendicular stripes. The 
poorest aiha ia of coarse brown worsted, and even of goat's- 
hair. 1 saw many men who were destitute of any cloth- 
ing but tattered ahhits tied round their waists by frayed 
hair ropes. The ahba is the distinctive national costume 
of the Arabs. The head-gear is not the turban but a 
shawl of very thick silk woven in irregular stripes of 
yellow and red. with long cords and tassels depending, 
made of the twisted woof. This handsome square is 
doubled triangularly, the double end hangs down the 
back, and the others over the shoulders. A loosely- 
twisted rope of camel'a-hair is wound several times round 
the crown of the Lead. When the weather is cold, being 
like all Orientals very sensitive in their heads, they bring 
one side of the shawl over the whole of the face but the 
eyes, and tuck it in, in great cold only exposing one eye. 
iUoA in great heat also. Alost Moslems shave the head, 
but the Arabs let their hair grow very long, and wear it 
a number of long plaits, and these elf-locks mixed up 
with the long coloured tassels of the kiffiych, and the dark 
glittering eyes looking out from under the yellow ailk, 
give them an appearance of extreme wildness, aided by 
the long guns which they carry and their long desert 
stride. 

The Arab moves as if he were the ruler of the country, 

though the grip of the Osmanli may be closing on him. 

His eyes are deeply set under sh^gy eyebrows, his nose 

ia high and sharp, he is long and thin, his profile su^est^ 

bird of prey, and his demeanour a fierce independence. 

VOL. I D 



The Arab women go about the streets unveiled, and 
with the nMa covering their very poor clothing, but it is 
not clutched closely enough to conceal the extiaordiusrf 
tattooing which the Bedouin women everywhere regari 
as ornamental. There are artists in Baghdad who make' 
their living by this mode of decorating the person, and' 
vie with each other in the elaboration of their patterns. 
I saw several women tattooed with two wreaths of blofl 
flowers on their bosoms linked by a blue chain, paliO' 
fronds on the throat, stars on the brow and chin, and 
bands round the wrists and ankles. These disfigurement^ 
and large gold or silver filigree buttons placed outside on* 
nostril by means of a wire passed through it, worn bj 
married women, are much adoiired. When these women 
sell country produce in the markets, they covet their 
heads with the ordinary chadar. 

The streets are narrow, and the walla, which aA 
built of fire-burned bricks, are high. Windows to 
the streets are common, and the oriel windows, with 
their warm brown lattices projecting over the roadwajv 
at irregular heights, are strikingly picturesque. Not ls4 
so are latticework galleries, which are often throim 
across the street to connect the two houses of wealthy 
residents, and the sitting-rooms with oriel window^ 
which likewise bridge the roadways. Solid doorwajl 
with iron-clasped and iron-studded doors give an im; 
pression of security, and suggest comfort and to soini 
extent home life, and sprays of orange trees, hangiq 
over walls, and fronds of date palms give an aspect 
pleasantness to the courtyards. 

The best parts of the city, where the great bazars, 
large dwelling'- houses, and most of the mosques are, is 
surrounded by a labyrinth of alleys, fringing off into 
streets growing meaner till they cease altogether amoi^i 
open spaces, given up to holes, heaps, rubbish, UmI 



u THE KERBELA "DEAD MARCH" 35 

ter of animals, and in some favoured apota to the 
tduction of vegetables. Then come the walls, ■which 
' are of kiln-burned bricks, and have towers intended for 
guns at intervals. The wastes within the walls have 
every element of decay arid meanness, the wastes without, 
where the desert sands sweep up to the very foot of the 
fortifications, have many elements of grandeur. 

Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried 
bricks. There are about twenty-five kilns, chiefly in the 
Jiauds of .Tews and Christians in the wastes outside the 

', but the demand exceeds the supply, not for building 
lonly, but for the perpetual patchings which houses, paths, 
and walls are always req_uiring, owing to the absorption 
of moisture in the winter. 

Bricks at the kilns sell for 36s. per thousand twelve 
inches square, and ISs. per thousand seven inches square. 
They are carried from the kilns on donkeys, smalt beaste, 
oach taking ten large or twenty-fivo small bricks. 

Unskilled labour is abundant Men can he engaged 
1; 9d. a day, and hoys for 5d. 

This afternoon, in the glory of a sunset which 
ireddened the yellow waste up to the distant horizon, 
t caravan of mules, mostly in single file, approached the 
isity. Each carried two or four white hales slung on 
s sides, or two or more long boxes, consisting of planks 
roped rather than nailed together. This is the fashion 

which thousands of Persian Moslems (Shiahs or 
' Sectaries ") have been conveyed for ages for final 
burial at Kerbela, the holiest place of the Sliiahs, an 
easy journey from Baghdad, where rest the ashes of AH, 
K^arded as scarcely second to Mohammed, and of Houssein 
Hassan Ids sons, whose "martyrdom" is annually 
Bommemorated by a Passion Play which is acted in 
Bvery town and village in Persia. To make a pilgrimage 

Kerbela, or to rest finally in its holy dust, or both. 



36 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

conatitutes the ambition of every Shlah. Tlie Sunnis, M 
" Orthodox," who hate the Shiahs, are so far kept in died 
that these doleful caravans ar« not exposed to any 
molestation than the shouts and ridicule of street Arabs. 

The mode of carrying the dead is not reverent 
hatirgis, who contract for the removal, hiirry the bodid 
along as goods, and pile them in the yards of tlH 
caravanserais at night, and the mournful journey i 
performed, oftener than not, without the presence oi 
relations, each body being ticketed with the name 
borne by its owner. Some have been exhumed and an 
merely skeletons, others are in various stjiges of decom- 
position, and some are of the newly dead.^ 

Outside the walls predatory Arabs render the roa4l 
iinsafe for solitary travellers, aud at times for feeble 
vans ; but things in this respect are better than they 

Visits to the Armenian and Chaldean CliureLes, to 
the Mosque of Abdel Kader, with its courts thronged by 
Afghan pilgrims, and to the Jewish quaiter, have befflf 
very interesting, TJiere are said to be 30,000 Jewl 
here, and while a large proportion of them are 
poverty, on the whole they are an influential nationalitj^ 
and some of them are very rich. 

Through the liberality of Sir Albert Sassoon a Jewid 
High School baa been opened, where an admirable educatJcni 
is given. I was extremely pleased with it, and with t^( 
director, who speaks French fluently, and with the pro; 
ficiency in French of the elder students. He 
their earnestness and energetic application as being nu 
remarkable. 

The French Carmelite monks have a large, solu 

■ I heard that tbe Shah had prohibited this " Dead March " to Eerbdl 
□n account of the many risks to the public health involved in it, b 
nearly a year later, in Puraiau Kunlistau, I met, besides tllouMUldl 
liring pilgrims, it larga caramm of the duod. 



¥ 



ARMENIAN HOUSES 37 

" Mission Church " or Cathetlral with a fine peal of bells, 
and a very prosperous school attached, in which are boys 
beloogiag to all the many creeda professed in Baghdad. 
The sisters of St Joseph have a school for girls, which 
Turkish children are not slow to avail themselves of. 
The sisters find a remarkable unhandiness among the 
women. Few, if any, among them have any idea of 
cutting ont or repairing, and rich and poor are equally 
incapable of employing their fingers usefully. 

The people here are so used to the sight of Europeans 
that it is quite easy for foreign ladies to walk in tliis 
quarter only attended by a servant, and I have accom- 
panied Mrs. Sutton on visits to several Armenian houses. 
The Armenians are in many cases wealthy, as their 
admirably-designed and well-built houses testify. The 
Christian population is estimated at 5000, and its wealth 
and energy give it greater importance than its numbers 
warrant One of the houses which we Y'sited was truly 
beautiful and in very good taste, the solidity of the stone 
and brickwork, the finish of the wood, and the beauty of 
the designs and their execution in hammered iron being 
quite remarkable. The lofty roofs and cornices are 
elaborately worked in plaster, and this is completely 
concealed by hundreds or thousands of mirrors set so as 
resemble facets, so that roof and cornices flash like 
'diamonds. This is a Persian style of decoration, and is 
extremely effective in lai^e handsome rooms. Superb 
carpets and divans and tea tables inlaid with mother-of- 
pearl furnish the reception and smoking rooms, and the 
bedrooms and nurseries over which we were taken were 
simply arranged with French bedsteads and curtains of 
Nottingham mosquito net. As in other Eastern houses, 
tiiere were no traces of occupation, no morning room or 
sacred to litter; neither was there anything to look 
-the opposite extreme from our overloaded drawing- 



38 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA leiteb ii 

rooms — or any library. C'igarett€3 and black coffee in 
QUDute porcelain ciipa, in gold filigree receptacles, were 
preaeiited ou each occasion, and tlie kind and couiteoos 
intention was very pleasing. 

Tlie visits whicb I paid with Dr. Sutton were very 
different He has worked as a medical missionajy here 
for some years, and hia unaffected benevolence and quiet 
attention to all suffering persons, without distinction of 
race or creed, and bis recent extraoi'dinary labours by 
night and day among the cholera-smitten people, have 
won for him general esteem and confidence, and he is 
even allowed to enter Moslem houses and prescribe for 
the women in some cases. 

The dispensary, in which there is not half enough 
accommodation, is very largely attended by people of all 
creeds, and even Moslem women, though exclusively of 
the poorer classes, avail themselves of it. Yesterday. 
when I was there, the comfortable seats of the cheerful 
matted waiting-room were all occupied by Armenian 
and Chaldieau women, unveiled and speaking quite 
freely to Dr. Sutton ; while a few Moslem women, 
masked rather than veiled, and enveloped in black 
sheets, cowered on the floor and scarcely let their voices 
be heard even in a tremulous whisper. 

I am always sorry to see any encroachment made by 
Christian teachers on national customs where they are 
not contrary to morality, and willingly leave to Eastern 
women the pardah and the veil, but still there is a 
wholesomeness about the unveiled, rosy, comely, frank 
faces of these Christian women. But — and it is a decided 
but — -though the women were comely, and though some 
of the Armenian girls ai'e beautiful, every one has one or 
more flattish depressions on her face — scars in fact — the 
size of a large date stone. Nearly the whole population 
is thus disfigured. So universal is it among the fair- 



II "DATE BOILS" 

skinned Armeniaii giris, that so far from being legarded as 

a blemish, it is viewed as a token of good health, and it is 

said that a young man would hesitate to ask for the 

. hand of a girl in marriage if she had not a " date mark " 

I on her face. 

eae " date boils," op " Baghdad boils," as they are 
F-Bometimes called, are not slow in attacking European 
I strangers, and few, if any, escape during their residence 
rhere. As no cause can reasonably be assigned for them, 
I'So no cure has been found. Various remedies, including 
|. cauterisation, have been tried, but without success, and 
fit is now thought wisest to do nothing more than keep 
them dry and clean, and let them run their natural course, 
which lasts about a year. Happily they are not so pain- 
ordinary boils. The malady appeal's at first as a 
. white point, not larger than a pin's head, and remains 
thus for about three months. Then the fiesh swells, 
I becomes red and hard and suppurates, and underneath 
. rough crust which is formed is corroded and eat«n 
I. away as by vitriol. On some strangers the fatal point 
[■appears within a few days oE their arrival. 

In two years in the East I have not seen any 
K-]Suropean welcomed so cordially as Dr. Sutton into 
r Moslem homes. The Ifaklm, exhibiting iji" quiet con- 
tinuance in well-doing " the legible and easily-recognised 
higher fruits of Christianity, while refraining from harsh 
and irreverent onslaughts on the creeds of those whose 
LsTtFTerings he mitigates, is everywhere blessed.' 

To my thinking, no one follows in the Master's foot- 
Kjprints so closely as the medical missionary, and on 
I BO agency for alleviating human suSering can one look 

' Six montlu later k Bakbtiari chief, a. bigoted Moalem, said to me at 
e concliisioD of An eament plua for European medical advicr^ ''Yea. 
d ■ great prophet ; levd us a Eakim in HU likeness," and doubtless • 
fir that llkenesa is the greater ia the suc(m.>s9. 



with more unqualified satisfaction. The medical mis- 
sion is the outcome of the living teacliings of our failL 
I have now visited such missions in many parts of 
the world, and uever saw one which was not healing 
helping, blessing ; softening prejudice, diminishing suf- 
fering, making an end of many of the cruelties which 
proceed from ignorance, restoring sight to the blind, 
limbs to the crippled, health to the sick, telling, in every 
work of love and of consecrated sktU, of the inlinite com- 
passion of Him who came " not to destroy men's lives, 
but to save them." 

In one house Dr. Sutton was welcome because be had 
saved a woman's life, in another because a blind youtk 
had received his sight, and so on. Among our visita 
was one to a poor Moslem family in a very poor qaarter. 
No matter how poor the people are, their rooms stand 
back from the street, and open on yards more or leas 
mean. It is a misnomer to call this dwelling a house, w 
to write that it operis, for it ia merely an arched receaa- 
whicli can never be shut ' 

In a hole in the middle of an uneven earthen Root 
there was a fire of tamarisk root and animal fuel, giving- 
off a stinging smoka On this the broken wheat porridge' 
for supper was being cooked in a copper pot, supported. 
on three rusty cannon-balls. An earthenware basin, a 
wooden spoon, a long knife, a goat- skin of water, a 
mallet, a long hen-coop, which had served as the bed f<» 
the wife when she was ill, some ugly hens, a clay jar fuU 
of grain, two heaps of brick rubbish, and some wadded 
quilts, which had taken on the prevailing gray-brown. 
colour, were the plenishings of the arch. 

Poverty brings one blessing in Turkey — the pooE 
man ia of necessity a monogamist. Wretched thongh tinB' 
place was, it had the air of home, and the smoky hole 
in the iloor was a lireside. The wife was unveiled and 



LBiTER II A TURKISH HOME 41 

joined ia the couversation, the husband was helpiDg her 
to cook the eiipper, and the children were sitting round 
or BcramLling over their parents' knees. All looked as 
happy as people in their class anywhere. It is good to 
have ocular demonstration that such homes exist in 
Turkey. God be thanked for thera ! The man, a fine 
i'rank- looking Turk, welcomed Dr. Sutton jovially. He had 
saved the wife's life and waa received as their best friend. 
Who indeed but tlie medical missionary would care for 
such as them and give them of his skill " without money 
and without price " ? The hearty laugh of this Turk was 

► good to hear, his wife smiled cordially, and the boys 
laughed like their father. The eldest, a nice, bright 
fellow of nine, taught in the mosque school, waa proud to 
show how well he could read Arabic, and read part of a 
chapter from St. John's Gospel, his parents looking on 
with wonder and admiration. 

Among the Christian families we called on were those 
of the dispenser and catechist — people with very small 
salaries but comfortable homes. These families were 
I living in a house furnished like those of the rich Armen- 
■ ians, but on a very simple scale, the floor and dms 
K covered with Persian carpets, the divan with Turkish 
Kvoollen stuff, and there were in addition a chair or two, 
^hnd silk cushions on the floor. In one room there were 
^nn intelligent elderly woman, a beautiful girl of seven- 
teen, married a few days ago, and wearing her bridal 
omamenta, with her liusband ; another man and his wife, 
and two bright, ruddy-cheeked boys who spoke six 
languages. AH had " date marks " on their faces. After 
a year among ^loslems and Hindus, it was startling to 
find men and women sitting together, the women un- 
I Teiled, and taking their share in the conversation merrily 
{ad happily. Even the young bride took the initiative 
1 talking to Dr. Sutton. 



4S JOLHtNEYS IK PERSIA lbtteb ii 

Of course the Christian womeu cover their faces in 
the streets, but tlie covering is of different material and 
arrangement, and is really magnificent, being of very rich, 
fltift', corded silk^-eelf-coloured usually — black, heliotrope, 
or dark blue, witli a contrasting colour woven in deep 
Vandykes upon a white ground as a border. The silk U 
superb, really capable of standing on end with richness. 
Such a sheet costs about £5. The ambition of every 
woman is to possess one, and to gratify it she even denies 
herself in the necessaries of life. 

TJie upper classes of both Moslem and Christian women 
are rarely seen on foot in the streets except on certain 
days, as when they visit the churches and the mosques 
and burial-grounds, N^evertheless they go about a great 
deal to visit each other, riding on white asses, which are 
also used by mollahs and rich elderly merchants. All 
asses have their nostrils slit to improve their wind. A 
good white ass of long pedigree, over thirteen hands high, 
coats as much as £50. As they are groomed till they 
look as white as snow, and are caparisoned with red 
leather trapping embroidered with gold thread and silks, 
and as a rider on a white ass is usually preceded by 
runners who shout and brandish sticks to clear the 
way, this animal always su^ests position, or at least 
wealth. 

Women of the upper classes mounted on tliese asses 
usually go to pay afternoon visits in companies, with 
mounted eunuchs and attendants, and men to clear the 
way. They ride astride with short stirrups, hut the rider 
is represented only by a shapeless blue bimdle, out of which 
protrude two yellow boots. Blacks of the purest negro 
type frequently attend on women, and indeed consequence 
is shown by the possession of a number of them. 

Of the Georgian and Circassian Mlts of the harams, 
a single lustrous eye with its brilliancy enhanced by the 



LETTER n THE TRADE OF BAGHDAD 43 

use of kohl is all that one sees. At the bottom of tlie 
scale are the Arab women aod the unsecluded women of 
the lower orders generally, who are of necessity drudges, 

I and are old hags before they are twenty, except in the 

I few cases in which they do not become mothers, when 
the good looks which many of them possess in exti'eme 
youth last a little longer. If one's memories of Baghdad 
women were only of those to be seen in the streets, they 
would be of leathery, wrinkled faces, prematurely old, 
figures which have lost all shape, and henna-stained 
Imnds crinkled and deformed by toil. 

Baghdad is busy and noisy with traffic. Great quan- 
tities of British goods pass through it to Persia, avoiding 
by doing so the horrible roek ladders between Bushire 
and Isfahan. The water transit from England and 
India, only involving the inconvenience of transliipment 
at Basrah, makes Bi^hdad practically into a seaport, with 
Bometlung of the bustle and vivacity of a seaport, and 
caravans numbering from 20,000 to 26,000 laden mules 
are employed in the carriage of goods to and from the 
Persian cities. A duty of one per cent is levied on 

I goods in transit to Pei'sia.' 

I The trade of Baghdad is not to be despised. The 
principal articles which were imported from Europe 
amounted in 1889 to a value of £621,140, and from 
India to £239,940, while the exports from Baghdad to 

' Ths entire trade of Baghdad is cxtimatPi! at about £2,SOO,000, of 
which th« Farsian transit trade is nearly a qaarter. The Persian iniporta 
and exports through Baghdad are claasifitd thua : Manufactured goods, 
including Manchester piece goails, and continental woollens and cottons, 
7000 to 8000 loads. Indian manufacturva, 1000 loads. Loof sugar, 
ebieflj from MarseUlee, 6000 loads. Drugs, pepper, coffee, tea, other 
tagaa, indigo, cochineal, copper, and spelter, 7000 loada. The Persian 
exports for despatch by sea include wool, opium, cotton, cargiets, gum| 
and dried Froits, and for local eonsumption, among others, tobacco, roglian 
(clarified butter), and dried and fresh (raits, with a probable bulk of from 
12,000 to 15,000 load<. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA xjctter n 

Europe and America were valued in the same year at 
£469,200. and to India liy British India Company 
steamers only at £35,150. In looking through the 
Consular list of exports, it ia interesting to notice that 
13,400 cwta. of gum of the value of £70,000 were 
exported in 1889. Neither the Indian postage stamps 
uor ours should suffer from the partial failure of the 
Soudan supply. 

Liquorice roots to the value of £7800 were exported 
in 1888, almost solely to America, to be used in the 
preparation of quid tobacco and " fancy drinks " ! 

Tlie gall nuts which grow in profusion on the dwarf 
oaks which cover many hillsides, were exported last year 
to the value of £35,000, to be used chiefly in the pro- 
duction of ink, so closely is commerce binding countries 
one to the other. 

Two English firms have concessions for pressing ■wool 
and making it into bales suitable for shipment Then 
are five principal English firms here, three French, and 
six Turkish, not including the small fry. There are five 
foreign Consulates. 

The carriage of goods ia one of the most important of 
Persian and Turkish industries, and the breeding of mules 
and the manufacture of caravan equipments give extensive 
employment; but one shudders to think of the amount 
of suffering involved in sore backs and wounds, and of 
exhausted and over-weighted animals lying down forlornly 
to die, having their eyes picked out before death. 

The mercury was at 37° at breakfast-time this morn- 
ing. Fuel is scarce and dear, some of the rooms are 
without fireplaces, and these good people study, write, 
and work cheerfully in this temperature in open rooms, 
untouched by the early sun. 

The preparations for to-morrow's journey are nearly 
complete. Three mules have been engaged for the 



■ER II TRA\'ELLING EQUIPMENTS 45 

baggage — one for Hadji, and a saddle mule for niyaelf ; 
stores, a revolver, and a muitjfd or brazier have been 
'bought ; a permit to travel has been obtained, and my 
boats, with the most thoughtful kindness, have facili- 
tated all the arrangements, I have bought two mule 
ytkdans, which are tall, narrow leather trunks on strong 
iron frames, with stout straps to buckle over the top of 
the pack saddle. On the whole I find that it is best 
to adopt as far as possible the travelling equipments of 
the country iu which one travels. The muleteers and 
servants understand them better, and if any thing goes 
wrong, or wears out, it can be repaired or replaced. I 
lieve given away en roide nearly all the things I brought 
iroia England, and have reduced my camp furniture to 
-a folding bed and a chair. I shall start with three 
novelties — a fellow-traveller,' a saddle mule, and an un- 
. tried saddle. 

It is expected that the joiimey will be a very severe 
^one, owing to the exceptionally heavy snowfall reported 
from the Zagros mountains and the Persian plateau. 
The Persian post has arrived several days late. 1, L B. 

* I hsd given u{i the idea oF travelling in Persia, and wu preparing to 
leave IdiUil for England, when an officer, with whatu 1 was then dq- 
•cquainted, and nbo nas about to proceed to Tiliran on busineas, kindly 
ofibred me his escort. The journey lumrd out one of extreme bardahiii 
and difficulty, and bad it not been for hiH kindness and efficient help I do 
not think that I abould have accompUshed it 



46 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letteb in 



LETTER IIP 

Yakobiyeh, Asiatic Turkey, Jan. 11, 

Whether for "well or ill" the journey to Tihran is 
begun. I am ashamed to say that I had grown so 
nervous about its untried elements, and about the 
possibilities of the next two months, that a very small 
thing would have made me give it up at the last 
moment ; but now that I am fairly embarked upon it in 
splendid weather, the spirit of travel has returned. 

Much remained for the last morning, — debts to be paid 
in complicated money, for Indian, Turkish, and Persian 
coins are all current here ; English circular notes to be 
turned into difficult coin, and the usual " row " with 
the muleteers to be endured. This disagreeable farce 
attends nearly all departures in the East, and I never 
feel the comfortable assurance that it means nothing. 

The men weighed my baggage, which was considerably 
under weight, the day before, but yesterday three or four 
of them came into the courtyard, shouting in Arabic at 
the top of their loud harsh voices that they would not 
carry the loads. Hadji roared at them, loading his 
revolver all the time, calling them " sons of burnt fathers," 
and other choice names. Dr. Bruce and Dr. Sutton 
reasoned with them from the balcony, when, in the very 

^ I present my diary letters much as they were written, beUeving 
that the details of travel, however wearisome to the experienced 
traveller, will be interesting to the '^Untra veiled Many," to whom these 
volumes are dedicated. 



I.ETTBR ni DEPARTURE FROM BAGHPAD 47 

height of the row, they auiiJeiity shouldered the loads 
and went off with them. 

Two hours later the dehghtful hospitahties of Dr. and 
Mrs. Sutton were left behind, and the farewell to the 
group in the courtyard of the mission house is a long 
farewell to civihsatiou. Eumours of difficulties have 
been rife, and among the various dismal prophecies the 
one oftenest repeated is that we sball be entai^led in 
the SU0W9 of the Zagros mountains ; but the journey 
began propitiously among oranges and palma, bright sun- 
shine and warm good wishes. My mule turns out a fine, 
flpirited, fast- walking anhnal, and the untried saddle 
suits me. My marching equipment consists of two large 
holsters, with a revolver and t«a-making apparatus in 
one, and a bottle of milk, and dates in the other. An 
Afghan sheepskin coat is strapped to the front of 
the saddle, and a blanket and stout mackintosh behind. 
I wear a cork sun-helmet, a gray mask instead of a veil, 
an American mountain dress with a warm jacket over it, 
and tan boots, scarcely the worse for a year of Himalayan 
travel. Hadji is dressed Uke a wild Ishmaelite. 

Captain Dougherty of H.M.S. Comet and his chief 
engineer piloted us through the narrow alleys and 
thronged bazars, — a znptich, or gendarme, with a rifle 
across his saddle-bow, and a sheathed sabre in his band, 
shouting at the donkey boys, and clearing the crowd to 
right and left. Through the twilight of the bazars, 
where chance rays of sunshine fell on warm colouring, 
gay merchandise, and picturesque crowds ; along narrow 
alleys, overhung by brown lattice windows; out under the 
glorious blue of heaven among ruins and graves, through 
thenorthern gateway.and then there was auabrupt exchange 
of the roar and limitations of the City of the Caliphs for 
the silence of the desert and the brown sweep of a limit- 
less horizon. A walled Eastern city has no suburbs. It 



wnen 
r wiflu 



48 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

is a literal step from a crowded town to absolute solitude. 
The contrast is speciaJIy emphasised at Baghdad, when 
the transition is made from a great commercial city 
a crowded waterway, to an uninhabited plain in 
nudity of mid-winter. 

A last look at gleaming domes, colom-ed minarets, 
massive mausoleums, rising out of au environment at 
palms and orange groves, at the brick walls and towea 
of the city, at the great gate to wliich lines of caravann 
were converging from every quarter, a farewell to 
kindly pilots, and the journey began in earnest. 

The " Desert " sweeps up to the walls of Baghdad, 
it is a misnomer to call the vast level of rich, stoneli 
alluvial soil a desert. It is a dead Hat of uuinhabil 
earth; orange colocjnth balls, a little wormwood, aai 
some alkaline plants which camels eat, being its chief' 
products. After the inundations reedy grass grows in tl»' 
hollows. It is a waste i-ather than a desert, and w«i 
once a populous plain, and the rich soil only needi 
irrigation to make it " blossom as the rose." Traces of tlM 
splendid iri'igation system under which it was once 
garden abound along the route. 

The mid-day and afteruoon were as glorious as an nft 
clouded sky, a warm sun, and a fresh, keen air could mata 
them. The desert freedom was all around, and til 
nameless charm of a nomadic life. I'lie naked plain 
which stretched to the horizon, was broken only by tin 
brown tents of Arabs, mixed up with brown patches < 
migrating flocks, strings of brown camels, straggliQ 
caravans, and companies of Arab horsemen heavi^ 
armed. Au expanse of dried mud, the mirage continual] 
seen, a cloudless sky, and a brilliant sun — this was al 
I felt better at once in the pure, exhilarating desert ail 
and nervousness about the journey was left behind, 
even indulged in a gallop, and except for her impetuosity 









LBiTEB nr THE FIRST CAMPING-GROUND 



4S 



which carried me into tlic middle of a caravan, and 
turning round a few times, the mule behaved so 
irreproachably that I forgot the potential poasibilitiea of 
eviL Still, I do not think that there can ever be that 
perfect correspondence of will between a mule and his 
rider that there is between a horse and his rider. 

The uairage was almost continual and grosfily 
deceptive. Fair blue lakes appeared with palma and 
towers mirrored on their glassy surfaces, giving place to 
snowy ranges with bright waters at their feet, fringed 
by tall trees, changing into stately processions, all so 
absolutely real that the real often seemed the delusion. 
These deceptions, continued for several hours, were 
humiliating and e.\asperating. 

Towards evening the shams disappeared, the waste 
purpled as the sun sank, and after riding fifteen miles 
we halted near the mud village of Orta Khan, a place with 
brackish water and no supplies but a little brackish 
sheep's milk. The caravanserai was abominable, and we 
rode on to a fine gravelly camping-ground, but the head- 
man and some of the villagers came out, and would not 
hear of our pitching the tents where we should be the 
prey of predatory hordes, strong enough, they said, to 
overpower an officer, two zaptiehs, and three orderlies ! 
Being unwilling to get them into trouble, we accepted a 
horrible camping-ground, a mud-walled " garden," trenched 
for dates, and lately irrigated, as damp and clayey as it 
conld be. My dhurrif will not be dry again this winter. 
The mules coiUd not get in, the baggage was unloaded at 
I some distance, and was all mixed up, and Hadji showed 

self incapable ; my tent fell twice, remained precarious, 

B kanats were never pegged down at all. 

( dhurrie was trampled into the mud by clayey 

Baggage had to be disentangled and unpacked 

■ dark, and the confusion apt to prevail oa the 

VOL I K 




BO JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

first night of a march was something terrible. It opened 
my eyes to the thorough inefScieucy of Hadji, who was 
so dazed with opium this morning that he stood about 
in a. dream, ejaculating " Fa Allah I " when it was sn^ 
gested that he should bestir himself, leaving me to do; 
all the packing, groaning as he took up the tent ; 
and putting on the mule's bridle with the bit 1 
under her chin ! 

The night was very damp, not quite frosty, and 1 
the dim morning the tent and its contents were i 
Tea at seven, witii Baghdad rusks, with a distinctly " i 
taste," two hours spent in standing about on the dai 
clayey ground till my feet were numb, while the mea^;' 
most of whom were 'complaining of rheumatism, stumbled- 
througli tlieir new work ; and then five hours of wasteqJ 
enlivened by caravans of camels, mules, horses, or asaefl 
and sometimes of all mixed, with their wild, armsfl 
drivers. The leader of each caravan carries a cylindaH 
shaped bell under his throat, suspended from a tea 
leather band stitched with cowries, another at Itis cheat 
and very large ones, often twenty-four inches long by tea 
in diameter, hanging from each pack. Every other animal 
of the caravan has smaller bells, and the tones, which 
are often most musical, reach from the deep note of t 
church bell up to the frivolous jingle of sleigh bellBf 
jingle often becomes jangle when several caravans u4 
together. The katirgis (muleteers) spend large sums on 
the bells and other decorations. Among the loads we 
met or overtook were paraffin, oranges, pomegranates, 
carpets, cotton goods, melons, grain, and chopped straw. 
The waste is covered with tracks, and a guide is absolutely 
necessary. 

The day has been still and very gloomy, with flakes of 
snow falling at times. The passing over rich soil, once 
cultivated and populous, now abandoned to the antelope 



LETTER III ANCIENT IRRIGATION WORKS 51 

and partridge, ia most melancholy. The remains of 
canals and water- courses, which in former days brought 
the waters of the Tigris and the Diyalah into the fields 
of the great grain-growing population of these vast levels 
of Chaldiea and Mesopotamia, are everywhere, and at 
times create difficulties on the road. By road is simply 
meant a track of greater or less width, trodden on the 
soil by the passage of caravans for ages. On these two 
marches not a stone has been seen which could strike a 
ploughshare. 

Great ancient canals, with their banks in ruins and 
their deep beds choked up and useless, have been a 
mournful feature of rather a dismal day's journey. We 
crossed the bed of the once magnificent Nahrwan canal, 
the finest of the ancient irrigation works to the east of 
the Tigris, still in many places from twenty-five to forty 
feet deep and from 150 to 200 feet in breadth. 

For many miles the only permanent village is a 
collection of raiserable mud hovels round a forlorn cara- 
vanserai, in which travellers may find a wretched refuge 
from the vicissitudes of weather. Tliere is a remarkable 
lack of shelter and provender, considering that this is 
not only one of the busiest of caravan TOutes, but is 
enormously frequented by Shiah pilgrims on thoir way 
from Persia to the shrines of Kerbela. 

After crossing the Nabrwan caual the road keeps 

near the right bank of the Diyalah, a fine stream, which 

for a considerable distance runs parallel with the Tigris 

at a distance of from ten to thirty miles from it, and falls 

I into it below Baghdad ; and imamzadas and villages with 

roves of palms break the line of the horizon, while on 

Kthe left bank for fully two miles are contiguous groves 

dates and pom^ranates. These groves are walled, 
md among them this semi-decayed and ruinous town la 
ntuated, miserably shrunk from its former proportions. 



&i 



JOUBN'EVS IS PERSIA 



"We entered Yakobiyeh after crossing the Diyalah 
pontoon bridge of twelve boats, and found one 
house with projecting lattice windows, and a 
entrance over which the head and ears of a hare 
nailed ; narrow, filthy lanes, a covered bazar, very 
and ruinous, but fairly well supplied, an archwayi 
within it this caravanserai in which the baggage miul 
be waited for for two hours. 

This first experience of a Turkish inn ia strikiii^ 
There is a large square yard, heaped with dirt aoj 
rubbish, round which are stables and some dark, niinoul 
rooms. A broken stair leads to a flat mud roof, o) 
which are some narrow "stalls," — rooTns they cannot b^ 
called, — with rude doors fastening only from the outsidi| 
for windows small round holes mostly stuffed with BtoM 
near the roof, for floors sodden earth, for fireplaces holes ia" 
tlie same, the walls slimy and nnplastered, the come« fiifl.- 
of ages of dusty cobwebs, both the walls and the raften, 
of the roof black with ages of smoke, and beetles aodv 
other abominations hurry into crannies, when the dooi^ 
are opened, to emerge as soon as they are shut. A 
hole in the wall outside each stall serves for cool 
The liabits of the people are repulsive, foul odours 
only hybernating, and so, mercifully, are the vermin. 

While waiting for the " furniture " which is to mi 
my " unfurnished apartment " habitable, I write ail 
on my camp stool with its back against the 
wrapped up in a horse-blanket, a heap of saddles, sw< 
holsters, and gear keeping the wind from my feet. 
Afghan orderly smokes at the top of the stair. Plumi 
of palms and faintly-seen ridges of snowy hills appear 
over the battlements of the roof. A snow wind blows 
keenly. My fingers are nearly numb, and I am generally 
stiff and aching, but so much better that discomforta 
■are only an amusement. Snow is said to be impending, 



LEiTERiii AN UNPLEASANT DEPARTURE 53 

I have lunclieii frugally on sheep's milk aud dates, 
and feel everything but my present surroundings to ha 
very far off, and as if I had lived the desert life, and 
had heard the chimes of the great caravans, and had 
seen the wild desert riders, and the sun sinking below 
the level line of the desert horizon, for two months 
iostead of two days. 

Yakobiyeh is said to have 800 houses. It has some 

small mosques and several caravanserais, of which this is 

the heat! It was once a flourishing place, but repeated 

ravages of the plague and chronic official extortions 

have reduced it to decay. Nevertheless, it grows grain 

enough for its own needs on poorly irrigated soil, and 

in its immense gardens apples, pears, apricots, walnuts, 

and mulberries flourish alongside of the orange and palm. 

Kizil Rabat, Jan. 14- — ^It was not very cold at 

Yakobiyeh. At home few people would be able to sit 

in a fireless den, with the door open, on a January 

night, but tireless though it was, my slender camp 

equipage gave it a look of comfort, and though rata or 

mice ate a bag of rusks during the night, and ran over 

I my bed, there were no other annoyances. Hadji grows 

L more dazed and possibly more unwilling every day, as 

he sees his vista of perquisites growing more limited, and 

to get off, even at nine, I have to do the heavy as well 

as the light packing myself. 

I There was a great " row," arising out of an alleged 

■^delinquency of the kalirgis concerning payment, when 

Irire left Yakobiyeh the following morning. The owners 

Hof the caravanserai wanted to detain us, and the arch- 

■iray was so packed with a shouting, gesticulating, 

Ricowling, and not kindly crowd, mostly armed, that it was 

" not easy for me to mount. The hire of mules always 

includes their fodder aud the keep of the men, but in 

the first day or two the latter usually attempt to break 



S4 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



their bargain, and compel their employer to provide for 
them. So long as Arabic ia spoken Hadji acta as sole 
interpreter, and though soldiers and zaptieha were left with 
him he was scared at being left behind with the 
The people stormed and threatened at the top of 
voices, but doubtless it was not so bad as it sounded, & 
we got tlirough the bazars without molestation, and tha 
into a peqjiexing system of ancient water-courses whoa 
high broken banks and deep waterless beds intersect ead 
other and the rood. In contrast to this magnitiGent irrigij 
tion system there are modern water-channels about a foO 
wide, taken from the river Diyalah, which, small as thq 
are, turn the rich deep soil into a " fruitful field." 

After these glimpses of a prosperity which once wi 
and might be again (for these vast alluvial plains, whid 
extend from tlie Zagros mountains to the Euphrates aq 
up to the Syrian desert, are capable with irrigada 
and cultivation of becoming the granary of Westoo 
Asia), the road emerges on a level and somewhat gravd^ 
waste, on which after a long ride we were overtaken If 
a zaptieh sent by the Persian t^eut in Yakobiyeh, to an 
that the baggage and servants were being forcibly dfl 
tained, but shortly afterwards with a good glass tb 
caravan was seen emerging from the town. 

The country was nearly as featureless aa on the piB 
ceding day, and on the whole quite barren ; among A 
few caravans on the road there were two of immesfj 
value, the loads being the best description of Peisia] 
carpets. Tliere were a few families on asses, inigratio| 
with all their possessions, and a few parties of Aral 
horsemen picturesquely and very fully anned, but n»' 
dwellings, till in the bright afternoon sunshine, on tl». 
dreariest stretch of an apparently verdureless waste, 
came on the caravanserai of Wiyjahea, a gateway with 
room above it, a square court with high walls and arcl 



LETTER III A TURKISH CAHAVANSERAI S5 

recesses all round for goods and travellers, and large 
stables. A row of reed huts, another of Arab tents, and 
a liovel opposite the gateway, where a man with two guns 
within teach sells food, tobacco, and hair ropes, make up 
this place of horror. For, indeed, the only water is a 
brackish reedy pool, with its slime well stirred by the feet 
of animals, and every man's hand is against his brother. 

We proposed to pitch my tent in a ruined enclosure, 
but the headman was unwilling, and wlien it was sug- 
gested that it should be placed between the shop and the 
caravanserai, he said that before sunset all the predatory 
Arabs for ten miles round would hear that " rich 
foreigners were travelling," and would fall upon and 
plunder us, so we must pitch, if at all, in the filthy and 
crowded court of the caravanserai The balakhaiia, or 
upper room, was too iusecure for me, and had no privacy, 
i the fodder was kept in it, and there was no method of 
closing the doors, which let in the bitterly cold wind. 

We arrived at 3 p.m., and long before sunset a number 
of caravans came in, and the courtyard was full of horses, 
mules, and asses. When they halted the loads were 
I taken off and stacked in the arched recesses ; next, the 
I great padded pack-saddles, which cover nearly the whole 
back, were removed, revealing in most cases deep sores 
and ulcers. Then the animals were groomed with box 
curry-combs, with " clatters" like the noise of a bird-scarer 
inside them. Fifty curry-combs going at once is like 
the din of the cicada. Then the beasts were driven in 
batches to the reedy pool, and came flying back helter- 
skelter through the archway, some fighting, others play- 
ing, many rolling. One of them nearly pulled my tent over 
by rolling among the tent ropes. It had been pitched 
OD damp and filthy ground in a comer of the yard, among 
^nules, horses, asses, dogs, and the roughest of rough men, 
lut even there the damp inside looked like home. 



86 JOURNEYS IN PEBSIA lftter ci 

After this brief hilarity, the pack-saddles, which serve 
as blankfttfl, were put ou, the camels were made to Ue 
down in rows, most of the mules and horses were tethered 
in the great stable, where they neighed, stamped, and 
jangled their hells all night, and others were picketed in 
the yard among tlio goats and donkeys and the big 
dogs, wliich wandered about yelping. Later, tlie small 
remaining space was filled up with sheep. It was just 
possible to move, but uo more, and sheep and goats were 
even packed imder the jlys of my tent. The muleteers 
and travellers spread their bedding in the recesses, Ugfated 
their fires of animal fuel, and cooked their food. 

At sunset the view from tlie roof was almost beautiful. 
Far away, in all directions, stretched the level desert 
purpling in the purple light Very faintly, on the far 
horizon to the north-east, mountain ranges were painted 
in amethyst on an orange sky. Horsemen in companies 
galloped to tents which were not in sight, strings of 
camels cast their long shadows on the purple saud, and 
flocks of big brown sheep, led by armed shepherds, con- 
verged on the reedy pool in long brown lines. The 
evening air was keen, nearly frosty. 

The prospects for the night were not encouraging, and 
on descending the filthy stair on which goats had taken 
up their quarters, I found the malodorous, crowded 
courtyard so blocked, that shepherds, with much pushing. 
shouting, and barking of big dogs, with difficulty made a 
way for me to pass through the packed mass of sheep 
and goats into the cold, damp tent, which was pitched on 
damp manure, two or three feet deep, into which heavy 
feet had trampled the carpet. The uproar of kntirgii and 
travellers went on for another two hours, and was ex- 
changed later for sounds of jangling bells, yelping and 
quarrelling dogs, braying asses, bleating sheep, and coarsely- 
snoring men. 



LETTER ni A FORLORN REOION 57 

At 9 P.M. the heavy gates, clomped with iron, were 
cloaed and harred, and some belated travellers, eager to 
get in from the perils of the outside, thundered at them 
long and persistently, but " the door was shut," and they 
encountered a hoarse refusaL The seraidar said that 
400 horses and mules, hesides camels and asses, 2000 
sheep, and over 70 men were lodged in the caravanserai 
that night. 

The servants were in a recess near, and Hadji pro- 
fessed that he watched all night, and said that he fired at 
a man who tried to rob my tent after the light went out, 
but I slept too soundly to he disturbed, till the caravans 
and flocks left at daybreak, after a preliminary uproar of 
two hours. It was bitterly cold, and my tent and its 
contents were soaked with the heavy dew, nearly doubling 
their weight. 

I started at 9 A.M., before the hoar-frost had melted, 

and rode with the xaptiek over flat, stoneless, alluvial 

' soil, with some irrigation and the remains of some fine 

I canals. There are villages to be seen in the distance, 

) but though the soil is rich enough ta support a very 

large population, there are no habitations near the road 

I except a few temporary reed huts, beside two large 

I caravanserais. There was little of an interesting kind 

I except the perpetual contrast between things as they are 

I and things as they were and might be. Some large 

L graveyards, with brick graves, a crumbling imaimada, a 

1 pointed arch of brick over the Nahrud canal, a few ass 

I oaravans, with a live fowl tied by one leg on the back of 

ich asa, and struggling painfully to keep its uneasy 

some cultivation and much waste, and then we 

sached the walled village of Sberaban, once a town, but 

rnow only possessing 300 houses. 

Passing as usual among ruinous dwellings and between 
I lilaGk walls with doors here and there, by alleys foul 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lbtier m 

with heaps of refuse, and dangerous from slimy pitfalls, 

in the very foulest part we turned into the caravanserai, 
its great courtyard reeking with filth and puddles, among 
which are the contaminated wells from which we are 
Buppoaed to drink. The experience of the night before 
was not repeated. There were fairly good rooms, mine 
looking into a. palm garden, through a wooden grating, 
cold truly, but pleasant I fear we may never have such 
" luxury " again, I remarked to my fellow-traveJler that 
our early arrival had fortunately given us the " choice of 
rooms," and he replied, " choice of pig-styes, — choice of 
dens ! " but ray experience at Wiyjahea has deprived me 
of the last remnants of fastidiousness ' 

I walked through the ruinous, wretched town, aod its 
poor bazar, where the very fine physique of the men was 
in marked contrast with their wretched surroundings, and 
gives one the impression that under honest officials they 
might be a fine people. They are not genial to strangerB, 
however. There was some bad language used in the 
bazar, and on the roads they pass one in silence at the 
best, so unlike the Tibetans with their friendly Tzu. At 
Sheraban one of the muleteers forced his way into my 
room, and roughly turned over ray saddle and baggage, 
accusing me of having taken his blanket ! Hadji is use- 
less under such circumstances. He blusters and fingers 
his revolver, but carries no weight. Indeed his defects 
are more apparent every day. I often have to speak to 
him two or three times before I can rouse him from his 
opium dream, and there is a growing inclination to shirk 
his very light work when he can shift it upon somebody 
else. I hope that he is well-meaning, as that would cover 
a multitude of faults, but he is very rough and ignorant, 
and is either unable or nnwilling to learn anything, even 
how to put up ray trestle bed ! 

Open rooms have simdry disadvantages. In tha night a 



LKTTEB III THE HAIIEIN HILLS 09 

cat fell from the roof upon my bed, and was soon joined by 
more, and they knocked over the lamp and milk bottle, 
and iu the darkness had a noisy quarrel over the milk. 

The march of eighteen miles here was made iii six hours, 
&t a good caravan pace. The baggage auimals were sent 
o£f in advance, and the mptieh led a mule loaded with 
chairs, blankets, and oecupationa. I ride with the zapdek 
in front of me till I get near the halting-place, when 

M and his orderly overtake me, as it might be 

disagreeable for a European woman to enter a town alone. 

The route lies over treeless levels of the same brown 
alluvial soil, till it is lifted on a gentle gravelly slope to a 
Beries of low crumbling mounds of red and gray sandstone, 
mixed up with soft conglomerate rocks of jasper and 
porphyry pebbles. These ranges of mounds, known as 
the Hamrin Hills, run parallel to the great Kurdistan 
ranges, from a point considerably below Baghdad, nearly 
to Mosul and the river Zab. They mark the termination 
in this direction of the vast alluvial plains of the Tigris 
and Euphrates, and are the first step to the uplifted 
Iranian plateau. 

Arid and intricate ravines, dignified by the name of 
passes, furrow these hills, and bear an evil reputation, as 
Arab robbers lie in wait, " making it very unsafe for 
small caravans." A wild, desolate, ill -omened -looking 
region it is. When we were fairly within the pass, the • 
zaptich stopped, and with much gesticulation and many 
repetitions of the word effendi, made me understand that 
it was unsafe to proceed without a larger party. We 
were unmolested, but it ia a discredit to the administra- 
tion of the province that an organised system of pillage 
should be allowed to exist year after year on one of the 
most frequented caravan routes in Turkey. There were 
several companies of armed horsemen among tlje ranges, 
and some cameU browsing, but we met no cam vans. 



\_^ 



60 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettkr tn 

From the top of the descent there was a striking view 
over a great brown alluvial plain, watered by tlie Beladmz 
and the Diyalah, with serrated hills of no great height, hot 
snow -covered ; on its east side a silent, strange, weird view, 
without interest or beauty as seen under a sullen aky. 
There are no villages on this inarch, but ancient canals 
run in all directions, and fragments of buildings, as well 
as of brick and pottery, scattered over the unploughed 
surface, are supposed by many to mark the situation of 
Dastagird, the residence of Khosroe I'arviz in the seventh 
centurj-. I have no books of reference with me, and 
can seldom write except of such things as I see and 
hear. 

Farther on a multitude of irrigation ditclies have 
turned a plain of dry friable soil into a plain of mud, 
through which it was difficult to straggle. Then came a 
grove of palms, ant! then the town or village of Juzil 
Eobat (lied Shrine), with its imavizada, whose reputation 
for sanctity is indicated by the immense number of 
graves which surround it. The walls of this decayed and 
wretched town are of thick layers of hni-dened but now 
crumbling earth, and on the east side there is an old 
gateway of burned brick. There are said to be 400 
houses, which at the lowest computation would mean a 
population of 2000, but inhabited houses and ruins are 
' so jumbled up together that one cannot form any estimate. 

So woe-begoue and miserable a place I never saw. 
and the dirt is appalling even in this dry weather. In 
spring the alleys of the town are impassable, and people 
whose business calls them out cross from roof to roof on 
boards. Pools of filtliy water, loathsome ditches with 
broad margins of trodden slime full oE abominations, ruins 
of houses, yards foul with refuse, half-clothed and wholly 
unwashed children, men of low aspect standing in melan- 
choly groups, a well-built brick bazar, in which Man- 



UNCOMFORTABLE QUARTERS 



61 



eliester cottons are proniineut, more mud and dirt, some 
■ruinoua caravanserais, and near tlie extremity of the town 
or village is the hoiTible one in which I now am, said to be 
the best, with a yard a Coot deep in manure and slush, in 
tihe midst of which is the well, and around which are 
^tables and recesses for travellers. 

At first it seemed likely that I should fall so low aa 
to occupy oue of these, but careful investigation revealed 
inoua stair leading to the roof, up which were two 
Tooms, or shall I say three ? — an arched recess such as 
coals are kept in, a small room within it, and a low wood 
hole. The open arch, witli a mangel or iron pan of 
charcoal, serves as the " parlour " this January night, 

M occupies the wood hole, and I the one room, into 

■which Hadji, with many groans and ejaculations of " Ya 
Allah I " has brought up the essential parts of my baggage. 
The eveniug is gray and threatening, and low, snow-covered 
iiills look grimly over the bare brown plain which lies 
outside this mournful place. 

KhannUcin, Jan. IS. — This has been a hard, rough 
'march, but there will be many worse aliead. Eain fell 
heavily all night, converting the yard into a lake of 
trampled mud, and seemed so likely to continue that it 
was difficult to decide whether to march or halt Miser- 
Able it was to see mules standing to be loaded, up to 
,their knees in mud, bales of tents and bedding lying in 
the quagmire, and the shivering Indian servants up to 
theii knees in the swamp. In rain steadily falling the 
;twelve animals were loaded, and after the usual scrimmage 
at starting, in which the bakJtshecsh is olten thrown back at 
■us, we rode out into a sea of deep mud, through which the 
ixiules, struggling and floundering, got on about a mile an 
jiour. 

After a time we came to gravel, then relapsed into 
ddeep alluvial aoU, which now means deep mire, then 




62 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



low range of gravelly hills on which a few sheep and 
camels were browsing on artemisia and other arometic 
herbs gave a temporary respite, then again we floundered 
through miles of mud, succeeded by miles of gravel and 
stones. The raiu fell in torrents, and there was a cold 
strong wind to fight against. There was that amount of 
general unpropitiousness which is highly stimulating and 
inspiriting. 

When noon came, there was not a rock or bush for 
shelter, and turning our backs to the storm we ate our 
lunch in our saddles. There was nothing to look at bat 
brown gravel, or brown mud, brooded over by a gray mist 
So we tramped on, hour after hour, in single ^e, the 
zaptieh leading, everything but his gun muffled in his 
brown afeJft, splashing through mud and water, the water 
pouring from my bat and cloak, the six woollen thicknesses 
of my mask dripping, seeing neither villages nor caravans, 
for caravans of goods do not travel in such rain as this. 
Then over a slope we went down into a lake of mud, 
where the aide-dc-cavi}') of the Governor of Khannikin, in 
a fez and military frock-coat and trousers, with a number 
of Basbi Bazouks or irregulars, met M — - — with courtesies 
and an invitation. 

From the top of the next slope there was a view of 
Khaunikin, a considerable -loo king town among groves of 
palms and other trees. Then came a worse sea of mud, 
and a rudely cobbled causeway, so horrible that it diverted 
us back into the mud, which was so bottomless that it 
drove us back to the causeway, and the causeway back to 
tlie mud, the rain all the time coming down in sheets. 
This causeway, without improvement, is carried through 
Khannikin, a town with narrow blind alleys, upon which 
foul courtyards open, often so foul as to render the recent 
ravages of cholera (if science speaks truly) a matter of 
aeoeBsity. The mud and water in these alleys was up to 



lETTER m ENTRANCE INTO KHANNIKIN 63 

the knees of the mules. Not a creature was in the 
streets. No amount of curiosity, even regarding the rare 
sight of a Frank woman, could make people face the 
storm in flimsy cotton clothea. 

Where the road turns to the bridge a line of irregular 

infantry was drawn up, poorly dressed, soaked creatures, 

standing in chilly mud up to their ankles, in soaked boots 

teaching to their knees. These joined and headed the 

cavalcade, and I fell humbly in the rear. Poor fellows ! 

To keep step was impossible when it was hard work to 

drag their feet out of the mire, and they carried their 

Tifles anyhow. It was a grotesque procession, A trim officer, 

forlorn infantry, wild-looking Bashi Eazouks, Europeans 

in stout mackintoshes splashed with mud from head to 

I foot, mules rolling under their bespattered loads, and a 

■ poiS6 of servants and orderlies crouching on the top of 

ft ba^age, muffled up to the eyes, the asses which carry 

* the fcalirgis and their equipments far behind, staggering 

and nearly done up, for the march of seventeen miles had 

taken eight and a half hours, 

»An abrupt turn in the causeway leads to the Holwan, 
a tributary of the Diyalab, a broad, rapid stream, over 
which the enterprise of a Persian has thrown a really 
fine brick bridge of thirteen heavily- buttressed arches, 
which connects the two parts of the town and gives some 
dignity and picturesqueness to what would otherwise be 

I mean. On the left bank of the Holwan are the barracks, 
the governor's house, some large caravanserais, the Custom- 
house, and a quarantine station, quarantine having just 
l)een imposed on all arrivals from Persia, giving travel 
Bud commerce a decided check. 
After half a mile of slush on the river bank we 
entered by a handsome gateway a nearly flooded court- 
yard, and the Governor's house hospitably engorged the 
whole party. 





JOniNETS IN PEESU uctter m 

The fiilly-Iaden mules stuck in tbe mud a few miles 
off, and did not come iu for two hours, and iii spite 
of covers everything not done up in waterproof was 
very wet The servants looked most miserable, and 
complained of chills and rheumatism, and one of the 
orderlies is really ilL We cannot move till the stoim 
is over. 

The rain falls heavily still, the river is rising, the 
alleys are two feet deep in slush, travel is absolutely 
suspended, and it is not possible without necessity to go 
out. It was well indeed that we decided to leave the 
shelterless slielter of Kizil Ilobat. Nothing can exceed 
the wretchedness of Khannikin or any Turkish town in 
such I'ain as this. Would that one could think that it 
would be washed, but as there are no channels to carry 
off the water it simply lodges and stagnates iu every de- 
pression, and all the accumulations of summer refuse 
slide into these abominable pools, and the foul dust, a 
foot deep, becomes mud far deeper ; buried things are 
half uncovered ; torrents, not to be avoided, pour from 
every roof, the courtyards are knee -deep in mud, the 
cows stand disconsolately in mud ; not a woman is to be 
seen, the few men driven forth by the merciless ex- 
igences of business show nothing but one eye, and with 
" loins girded " and big staffs move wearily, stumbling 
and plunging in tbe mire. 

After some hours the tiat mud roofs begin to leak, 
water finds out every weak place iu the walls, the bazars, 
only half open for a short time in the day, are deserted 
by buyers, and the patient sellers crouch over mangds, 
muffled up in sheepskins, the caravanserais are crammed 
and quarrelsome ; the price of fodder and fuel rises, and 
every one is drowned in min and wretchedness. Even 
.hiMi. owing to the scarcity of fuel, nothing can be dried ; 
'ants in their damp clothes come in steaming; 



LETTEB lu CONTINUED RAIN 65 

Hadji in his misshapen "jack-boots," which he asserts 
he cannot take off, spreads fresh mud over the carpets 
whenever he enters; I shift from place to place to 
avoid the drip from the roof — and still the rain comes 
down with unabated vigour ! 



VOL.1 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTER in (Continue^ 



Thk house consists of two courtyanls, with buildings 
round them. The larger and handsomer is the karam 
or women's house, which is strictly enclosed, has no ex- 
terior windows, and its one door into the men's house 13 
guarded liy a very ancient ennuclL The courtyard of 
this house is surrouTided partly by arched serdabs, with 
green lattice fronts, and partly by a kitchen, bakery, 
wood-houae, hammavi. or hot bath, and the servants' 
quarters. The haram has a simitar arrangement on the 
lower floor, A broad balcony, reached by a steep and 
narrow stair, runs round three sides of the upper part 
of this house. There are very few rooms, and some rf 
them are used for storing fmiL The wet baggage ia 
mostly up here, and under the deep roof the servantA 
and orderlies camp, looking miserable. The Jiaram has a 
balcony all round it, on which a number of reception and 
living rooms open, and though not grand or elaborately 
decorated, is convenient and comfortable. 

The Turkish host evidently did not know what to do 
with such an embarrassing guest as a European woman, 
and solved the difficulty by giving me the guest-chambei 
in the men's house, a most fortunate decision, as I have 
had quiet and privacy for three days. Besides, this room 
has a projecting window, with panes of glass held in by 
nails, and there is not only a view of the alley with its 
slush, but into the house of some poor folk, and over that 



I 111 A GOVERNOR'S HOUSEHOLD 67 

} ttie Holwan, sometimes in spate, sometitnea falling, and 
through all the houra of daylight frequentfid by glooms 
for the purpose of washing their horses. Some shingle 
banks, now overflowed, sustain a few scraggy willows, and 
on the farther side is some low-lying land. There may be 
sauch besides, but the heavy rain-clouds blot out all else. 
My room is whitewashed, and is furnished with Persian 
Tugs, Austrian bent-wood chairs, and a divan in the 
window, on which I sleep. Lamps, samovars, and glasses 
s kept in recesses, and a black slave is often iu and out 
: them. Otherwise no one enters but Hadji. I get 
iny food somewhat precariously. It is carved and sent 
ftora table at the beginning of meals, chiefly pillau, curry, 
iabobs. and roast chicken, but apparently it is not 
etiquette for me to get it till after the men have dined, 
and it is none the better for being cold. 

The male part of the household consists of the 
Governor and his brother-in-law, a Moslem judge, and 
l^e quarantine doctor, a Cretan, takes his meals in the 
iiouse. The Governor and doctor speak French. My 
fellow-traveller lives witli them. 

The night we arrived, the Governor in some agitation 
asked me to go and see his wife, who is very ill 
He cholera has only just disappeared, and the lady had 
had a baby, which died of it in three days, and " beiug a 
boy her heart was broken," and " something had come 
mder her arm." So I went with him into the karam, 
nrbich seemed crowded with women of various races and 
flours, peeping from behind curtains and through chinks 
Jf doors, tittering and whispering. The wife's room is 
icbly carpeted and thoroughly comfortable, with a huge 
ibarcoal brazier in the centre, and cushions all over the 
■, except at one end, where there is a raised alcove 
rith a bed in it. 

On this the lady sat — a rather handsome Kurdish 



«8 J0UENEY8 IN PERSIA leiteb in 

woman, about thirty-five, dressed in a silk quUted jacket, 
and with a black gauze handkerchief round her head, 
and ft wadded quilt over her crossed legs. She was sup- 
ported by a pile of pillows. Since then I have been 
sent for to see her several times every day, and found her 
always in the same position. There is surely something 
weird about it She says she sits there all night, ami 
has not lain down for two months. A black slave 
was fanning her, and two women, shrouded in veils of 
tinselled gauze, sat ou the bed combing her luxuriant 
hair. She is not really beautiful at all, but her husband 
assures me constantly that she is " une femme savantf." 
She has property and the consideration which attaches 
to it. She was burning with fever and very weak. 

I had scarcely returned to my room when my host 
sent again, begging that I would go back and see the 
doctor. I found that it was expected that I should per- 
suade the lady to consent to have the abscess, or whatever 
it is, reopened. The room was full of women and eunuchs. 
and the chief eunuch, an elderly Arab, sat on the bed 
and supported lier while the doctor dressed the wound, 
and even helped him with it. Her screams were fearful, 
and five people held her with difficulty. Her husband 
left the room, unable to bear her cries. 

Quite late I was sent for again, and that time by the 
lady, to know if I thought she would die. It appears 
that her brother, the judge, remains here to see that she 
is not the victim of foul play, but I don't like to ask to 
whom the suspicion points, or whether our host, althoagh 
the civil governor, keeps him here that he may not be 
suspected in case his ricli wife dies. 

Except for the repeated summonses to the sick-room, 
a walk on the slime of the roof when the rain ceases for 
a time, aud on the balcony of the Uaram when it does 
not, and a study of the habits of my neighbours over the 



LETTER lit THE HEIGHT OF FELICITY 69 

way, it is very dulL I have patched and mended every- 
thing that gave any excuse for either operation, have 
written letters which it ia not safe to post, and have 
studied my one hook on Persia till I know it throughout, 
and still the rain falls nearly without cessation and the 
quagmires outside deepen. 

So bad is it that, dearly as Orientals love hazars and 
hammams, Hadji refuses leave to go to either. I re- 
marked to him that he must be glad of such a rest, and 
he replied in bis usual sententious fashion : " They who 
have to work must work. God knows all." I fear he 
ia very lazy, and he has no idea of making one comfort- 
able or of keeping anything clean. He stamps the mud 
of the courtyard into the carpets, and wipes my plates 
without washing them, with his shirt. He considers that 
our host has attained the height of human felicity. 
" What is there left to wish for ? " he says. " He has 
numbers of slaves, and he's always buying moi-e, and he's 
got numbers of women and eunuchs, and everything, and 
when he wants money he just sends round the villages. 
God is great ! Ya Allah ! " 

Khannikin, being the nearest town to the Persian 
frontier, should be a place of some importance. It is 
well situated at an altitude of 1700 feet among groves of 
I palms, on both banks of the Holwan, and having plenty 
* of water, the rich alluvium between it and Yakobiyeh 
ia aUe to support its own population, though it haa to 
import for caravans. Most of the Persian trade with 
Baghdad and thousands of Sliiah pUgi-ims annually pass 
through it. It is a customs station, and has a regiment 
of soldiers. Nevertheless, it is very ruinoiis, and its 
population has diminished of late years from 5000 to 
I Bbout 1800 (exclusive of the troops), and of this number 
. have been carried off by cholera within the last 
It has no schools, and no special industries. 





70 



JOUBNEYS IK PERSIA 



The stamp of decay rests upon it. Exactions, crushing 
hope out of the people, tlie general insecurity of pro- 
perty, and the misrule which has blighteil these line 
Asiatic provinces everywhere, sufflcieutly explain ils 
decadence. 

The imposition of quarantine on arrivals from Persia 
has all but stopped the supply of charcoal, and knowing 
the scarcity in the house, I am going without a fire, as 
most of the inhabitants are doing. A large caravausend 
outside the walls is used as a quarantine station, and 
three others are taken as lazarettos. Out of these 
arrangements the ofiicials make a great deal of money in 
fees, but anything more horrible than the sanitary state 
of these places cannot be conceived. The water appean 
to be the essence of typhoid fever and cholera, and tlie un- 
fortunate detenus are crowded into holes mifit for beastB, 
breathing pestiferous exhalations, and suiTounded by such 
ancient aud modem accumulations of horrors that typhus 
fever, cholera, and even the plague might well be expected 
to break out. 

Yesterday, for a brief interval, hills covered with snow 
appeared through rolling black clouds, and a change 
seemed probable, but rain fell in torrents all night ; there 
is a spate in the river, and though we were ready to atart 
at eight this morning, the Icatirgis declined to move, say- 
ing that the road could not be travelled because of the 
deptli of the fords and the mud. 

The roof, though a good one, is now so leaky that I 
am obliged to sleep under my waterproof cloak, and the 
un-puttied window-frames let in the rain. Early this 
morning a gale from the south-west came ou, and the 
howling and roaring liave been frightful, the rain falling 
in sheets most of the time. Sensations are not wanting. 
One of the orderlies is seriously ill, aud has to be left 
behind under medical care till he can be sent to India, — 



LixrERiii THE UARAM 71 

the second man who has broken down. A runner came in 
with tlie news that all caravans are stopped in the Zagroa 
mountains by snow, which has been falling for five days, 
and that the road ia not expected to be open for a fort- 
night Later, the Persian agent called to say that on the 
next march the road, which ia carried on a precipice above 
the river, has slid down boddy, and that there are fifteen 
feet of water where there should be only two. Of course 
this prolonged storm is " exceptional." The temperature 
is falling, and it is so cold without a fire that though 
my bed ia only a blanket-covered dais of brick and 
lime, dripped upon continually, in a window with forty , 
draughts, I am glad to muffle myself up in its blankets 
and write among wraps. 

The Governor, recognising the craze of Europeans for 

exercise, sent word that M might walk in the 

balcony of the JiMram if I went to chaperon him, and this 

great concession was gladly accepted, for it was the only 

possible way of getting warm. The apparition of a 

strange man, and a European, within the precincts of the 

haram was a great event, and every window, curtain, and 

I doorway was taken advantage of by bright dark eyes 

[ ftparkling among folds of cotton and gauze. The enjoy- 

I ment was surreptitious, but possibly all the more keen, 

[vknd sounds of whispering and giggUng surged out of 

[every crevice. There are over thirty women, some of 

Ltliem negresses. Some are Kurds and very handsome, 

jbut the faces of the two handsomest, though quite young, 

Lve something fiendish in their expression. I have seldom 

et haram without its tragedies of jealousy and hate, 

ind every fresh experience makes me believe that the 

^stem is as humiliating to men as it is to women. 

The Juiram reception-rooms here are large and bright, 

. roofs and cornices worked daintily in very white 

later, and there are superb carpets on the fioors, and 



73 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettkb m 

divans covered ■with Damascus embroidery in gold silk on 
cream muslin. 

Each day tlie demands for my presence in the sick- 
room are more frequent, and though I say that I can 
scarcely aspire to be a nurse, they persist in th inking 
that I am a SaMm, and possibly a useful spy on the 
doctor. I have become aware that unscrupulous jeal- 
ousy of the principal wife exists, and, as is usual in 
the East, everybody distrusts everybody else, and pre- 
fers to trust strangers. The husband frequently asks 
me to remove what seems a cancerous tumour, and the 
iloctor says that au operation is necessary to save the 
lady's life, hut when I urge him to perform it, and offer 
H imrse's help, he replies that if she were to die he 
would he at once accused of murder, and would run a 
serious risk. 

The Governor to-day was so anxious that I shonld 
persuade the lady to undei^ an operation that he even 
lirought Hadji into the room to interpret what I said in 
Arabic. His ceaseless question is, " Will she die ? " and 
she asks me the same many times every day. She 
insists that I shall be present each day when the wound 
is dressed, aud give help, lest the doctor without her 
leave should plunge a knife into the swelling. These 
are moat distressing occasions, for an hour of struggle and 
suffering usually ends in delirium. 

This afternoon, however, she was much freer from 
pain, and sent for me to amuse her. She wore some fine 
jtiwels, and some folds of tinselled gauze round her head, 
luid looked really handsome and intelligent. Her hus- 
Imnd wished that we could converse without liis imperfect 
ilitorpreting, and repented many times, "She is a learned 
woman, and can write and read several languages." The 
nHini was as usual full of women, who had removed their 
\'^lii at their lord's command. I showed the lady some 



LETTEH III CHRONIC ENNVI 73 

Tibetan sketches, but ■when I came to one of a man the 
women replaced their veils ! 

When I showed some embroidery, the Governor said he 
had heanl that the Queen of England employed herself 
with her needle in leisure hours, but that it is not commc 
il/aul here for ladies to work. It seems that the making 
of sweetmeats is the only occupation which can be 
pursued without loss of dignity. Is it wonderful that 
intolerable ennui should be productive of the miserable 
jealousies, rivalries, intrigues, and hatreds which accompany 
the system of polygamy ? 

The host, although civil governor of a large district, 
also suffers from ennui The necessary official duties are 
very light, and the accounts and reports are prepared by 
others. If money is wanted he makes " an exaction " on 
B village, and subordinates screw it out of the people. 
Justice, or the marketable commodity wliich passes for 
such, is administered by a kadi. He clatters about the 
balconies with shppered feet, is domestic, that is, he 
spends most of the day in the haram, smokes, eats two 
meals of six or seven courses each, and towards evening 
takes a good deal of wine, according to a habit which is 
becoming increasingly common among the higher classes 
of Moslems. He is hospitable, and is certainly anything 
but tyrannical in his household. 

The customs and ways of the first Turkish house I 
have visited in would be as interesting to you as they 
were to myself, but it would be a poor return for 
hospitality to dwell upon anything, unless, like the 

I difficulties regarding the illness of the principal wife, 

kit were a matter of common notoriety. 

It is a punishable act in Persia, and possibly here also, 

I'to look into a neighbour's house, but I cannot help it 
jsa I were to avoid the window altogether. Wealth 

Wtnd poverty are within a few feet of each other, and 



74 JOUBXEYS IX PERSIA letter m 

15 il:sl«rzi5 JLTr iLirl^iole ^j a dezree and in a manner 
•Triii.ii Tills ::< :■: sLizi-r. :Le juxtap^^sition is advantageous. 

il" :i'=i^i:«: ITS rr^niis^s consist of a very small and 
•ji«ea:i y-ir^i. z.-.^ i ::<: deep in black mire, a cow-shed, 
mc d r:oci ttsL-iiz d>:T or windows, with a black im- 
•iv^ii i:cr. jjii blick slimv rafters — neither worse nor 
.t::cr z'zj.'z rianv bivels in the Western Isles of Scotland. 
A "ur ill zlL'L'L,-^ liir. a woman of dubious age, two girls 
r'rvn; ri-iL: :> tea vrirs old. and a bov a little older are 
th-e x'c::id:::>. Tl.-r rumirure consists of sonie wadded 
:il1:5. j. .LiLi-.r r^:. an Lrr-n girdle, a clav ewer or two, a 
l.-ii^ kiiirV. i W'>:drn sp«jon. a clay receptacle for grain, 
:wo or iliree earthenware basins, glazed green, and a 
'.vijker tray. The cow -shed contains — ^besides the cow, 
wlu.h is fe^l on -iried thistles — a spade, an open basket, 
au.l a ca^a^e pa«i A few fowls live in the house, and 
art' di>ooii jertei-l to find that thev cannot get out of it 
wirhoi;: swiminiuLT. 

Tho weather is cold and raw, fuel is enormously 
dear, work is at a standstill, and cold and ennui keep 
niv uei-ihlvui's in bed till the dav is well advanced. 
• rH\l *' consists of a wadded quilt laid on the floor, with 
another for a coverini:. The man and boy sleep at 
ouo end of the room, tiie woman and girls at the other, 
wiih covered hea-ls. Xone make any change in their 
vUvss at night, except that the man takes ofiF the pagri 
of his turban, retaining only a skull cap. 

The woman get?^ up first, lights a fire of tamarisk 
iwii^s and thistles in a hole in the middle of the floor, 
uiakcs porridge of some coarse brownish flour and water, 
.iiul sols it on to warm — to hoil it, with the means at her 
sUsiKvsal is impossible. She wades across the yard, gives 
ihe ov»NV a bunch of thistles, milks it into a basin, adds a 
■ittlo leaven to the milk, which she shakes in a goat skin 
'dl \i if* thick, carries the skin and basket to the house. 



A GLIMPSE OF PEASANT LIFE "6 

feeds the fowls from the basket, and tlien rouses her lord. 
He rises, stretches himself, yawns, aud places himself 

s-legged by the fire, after putting on his pagri. The 
I is dense with pungent wood smoke, which escapes 
^ough the doorway, and only a few embers remain. 
Hie wife hands him an earthen bowl, pours some porridge 
into it, adds some " thick milk " from the goat skin, and 
Stands before him with her arms crossed while he eats, 

1 receives the bowl from his hands and kisses it, as is 
usual with the slaves in a household. 

Then she lights hia pipe, and while he enjoys it 
ihe serves her boy with breakfast ui the saine fashion, 
omitting the concluding ceremony, after which she and 
the girls retire to a respectful distance with the big pot, 
and finish its contents simultaneously. The pipe over, 
she pours water on her lonl's hands, letting it run on the 
.already damp floor, and wipes them with her ckadar. 
Ko other ablution is customary in the house. 

Poor as this man is, he is a Hadji, and having brought 
&om Mecca a " prayer stone," with the Prophet's hand 
npon it, he takes it from his girdle, puts it on the floor, 
bows his forehead on it, turning Mecca-ward, aud says his 
prayera, repeating his devotions towartls evening. The 
first day or two he went out, but the roads now being 
ftlmost impassable, he confines himself to the repairing of 
1 small dyke, which keeps the water from running into 
the room, which is lower than the yard, and performs its 
duty very imperfectly, the soak from the yard and the 
drip from the roof increasing the sliminess hourly. These 
repairs, an occasional pipe, and much sleep are the record 
irf this man's day till an hour before sunset, when the 
meal of the morning is repeated with the addition of 
some cheese. 

The children keep chiefly in bed. Meanwhile the 
roman, the busy bee of the family, contrives to patter 




about nearly all day in wet clothing, carrying out 
rubbish in single handfuls, breaking twigs, cleaning the 
pot, and feeding the cow. The roof, which in fine weather 
is the scene of most domestic occupations, is reached 
by a steep ladder, and she cHmba this seven times in 
Buccesaion, each time carrying up a fowl, to pick for 
imaginary worms in the slimy mud. Dyed yarn is also 
carried up to steep in the rain, and in an interval of 
dryness some wool was taken up and carded. An hour 
before sunset she lights tlie fire, puts on the porridge, 
and again performs seven journeys with seven fowls, 
feeds them in the house, attends respectfully to her lord, 
feeds her family, including the cow, paddles through 
mire to draw water from the river, and unrolls and 
spreads the wadded quilts. By the time it is dark they 
are once more in bed, where I trust this harmless, 
industrious woman enjoys a well-earned sleep. 

The clouds are breaking, and in spite of advem 
rumours it is decided co&ie que coAte to start to-morrow. 
For my own part I prefer the freedom even with the 
'" swinishness " of a caravanserai to receiving hospitality 
for which no fitting return can be made. I. L. B. 



DEPABTURE FROM KHANNIKIN 



LETTEK IV 



SARirUL-I-ZOHAB, Jnn. SI. 
VThe rain at last ceased, and aft«r the katirgis had 
iquabbled for an hour over the baggage, we got off at 
ftten, two days ago, very grateful for shelter and hospi- 
Ktality under such untoward circumstances. Six Baahi 
■ Bazouka and two zaplidus on foot in ragged and in- 
congruous uniforms escorted us to the Turkish frontier. 

The streets were in a terrible conditiou. aiid horse and 
footmen, after an attempt to march in pairs, fell perforce 
into a floundering and disorderly single file, the footmen 
occasionally pulling themselves out of mud holes by the 
tails of the horses. Outside the town there was an 
expanse of mud and flooded water-channels which broke 
ap the last attempt at a procession, and led to a general 
sauve quipnif. The mire was tenacious and up to the 
horses' knees, half the mules were down with their loads, 
Hadji rolled iuto the mud, my capable animal snorted 
and struggled, some went on banks and some took 
to streams, the asses had to be relieved of their loads, 
and the air was full of shouts and objurgations, till after 
much delay the forlorn rabble all struggled to the terra 
firma of a gravelly slope, splashed from head to foot. 

The road crosses low, rolling, gravelly hills, with an 
occasional outcrop of red sandstone, and ascends on the 
I whole The sun was bright, biit the wind was strong 
L and very cold. The Bashi Eazouk escort was altogether 





hamiu-scatum and inconsequent, careering in circles, and 
litiujj at binls (-which they never hit) from the saddle, 
iuiil when we reached some low hills bearing a bad 
r«)>uttttton. the officer, in order to represent danger and 
his vigilant care, threw them out in all directions scoot 
ing tot robbers, till we came to a steepish hill crowoed 
by A twimd tower with a mushroom top, a few 
ruinuus uiud buildings, and a tattered tent. Hera the 
tMKurl fonued into one line, and the ragged garrison into 
another, with an oBicer facing them, and were photo- 
)ji'ui>hwd as they shivered in the biting wind. This tower 
it \k Ttirkish frontier fort. 

Souu afterwards the Persian frontier is crossed, 
tlto hiUs increase considerably in size, and mud was 
vwban^ed for firm, rough gravel A feature of the 
iiliwtwisi) fbaturoless landscape is tlie frequent occurrence 
•if luweni like martello towers, on hill-tops, placed there 
fiM' llio aholtor of tlie guards who formerly kept a look- 
I uul foi' robbfjrs. In the uninteresting gravel lie pebbles 
l»^ jtw^Hjc and agate, emerald green, red, yellow, and 
I'hi) first object of the slightest interest in this 
^ry was a village of Ilyats, built of reed screens, 
I o( goat'a-hair cloth, and with small yards with 
I iu IVvmt. The women, wJio wore full trousers 
[ Hh^Tl jackets, were tall, somewhat striking -looking, 
) vmvvUwl Their hair hung down in long plaits, and 
i \vi handkerchiefs knotted at the back of the 

k Ul usuort of four Persian sowars joined us. The 
H wiu that with which we are familiar on Sasan- 
iiil nuulptured atones, the brow and chin receding 
Uv, and iho nose tliin and projecting, the profile 
1% \ivuk rather than a human face, and the skin 
|l^iiyaranoe of being drawn so tightly over the 
K Mvo tht) t>yes into singular prominence. 



LrwER n- KASR-I-SHIRIN 7i) 

A six. Lours' march ended at the -wildly-situated village 
of Kaar-i-Shirin, high on the right bank of the Holwan, 
with a plantation of dates on the left hank and consider- 
able cultivation in the valley. It has only eighty houses 
of the moat wretched construction, rivalled in height 
and size by middens, the drainage of which wastes itaelf 
on the wretched roadway. A caravanserai of the most 
miserable description, a square fort with a small garrison, 
and some large graveyards with domed tombs and 
curious obelisks, are the salient features o£ this village. 
Its wretched aspect is accounted for by its insecurity. 
It has been destroyed by robber tribes as often as there 
I was anything worth destroying, and it has been so tossed 
[ to and fro between Turkey and Persia as not to have 
any of the special characteristics of either empire. 

We stopped short of the village, at a great pile of 
building on a height, in massiveness and irregularity 
resembling a German medieval castle, in which a letter 
had secured accommodation. It has been unoccupied 
since its owner, Jan Mir, a abeikh of a robber tribe, and 
the terror of the surrounding neighbourhood, was made 
away with by the Persian Government, 

The accommodation consisted of great, dark, arched, 
vaulted rooms, with stone-flagged floors, noble in size, but 
I needing fifty candles and huge log fires to light up and 
I -warm their dark recesses, and gruesome and damp with 
one candle and a crackle of twigs. They were clean, 
however, and their massive walls kept out the cold. 
The village is at an elevation of 2300 feet, and the 
temperature has greatly changed. 

The interest of Kasr-i-Shirin is that it lies among 
I masses of ancient rubble, aud that the slopes which 
I surround it are completely covered with hewn and 
1 imhewn stones of all sizes, the relics of a great city, at 
l^e westeni extremity of which the present wretched 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA litoib iv 

hamlet stauils.' The walls, which are easily traced, 
enclose an irregular square, the shortest front of which is 
said to be three miles long. They are built of roughly- 
hewn blocks of gray and red sandstone, and very harvl 
mortar or concrete. The blocks are so huge in many 
places as to deserve the often misused epithet Cyclopean. 
Within this enclosure are remains of houses built of 
water-worn round stones, which lie in monstrous heaps, 
and of a large fort on an eminence. In another direction 
are tlie ruins of an immense palace of quadrangular fomi, 
with only one entrance, and large underground rooms 
now nearly choked up. There are remains of what must 
have been very fine archways, but as the outer coating of 
hewn stone and all the decorations have fallen off, leaving 
only the inner case of rough rubble and concrete, the 
architectural forms are very badly defined, and the aspect 
of what must once have been magnificent is now for- 
bidding and desolate. The remains of an aqueduct cut 
in the rock, and of troughs and stone pipes by which 
water was brought into the palace and city, from a distance 
of fifteen miles, are still traceable among the desolations, 
but of the beautiful gardens which they watered, and 
with which Khosroe surrounded the beautiful Shirir, not 
a trace remains. There was a pale sunset, flushing witli 

' Auother interest, ho wo ver, is its connection wiUi many of the roaulitie 
leirends still told of Kbosroe t'srviz and his beautiful qneeo, complicatad 
with love Btoriea concerninf; the sculptor Fsrhad, to irhom the PenUni 
Btttibnte soma uf their most famous rock aculpturea, Omi of the mutt 
romantic of these legends is tbat Farhad loved Sbiria, and that Kbotro* 
was aware of it, and promised to give lier to him if he could execute the 
impoBsiUc task of bringing to the city the abundant Waters of the nuran- 
tALUa. Farbod set himself to the Herculean labonr, and to the horror of 
the king nearly accomplished it, when Khoeroe, dreading the odTaQoilig 
necessity of losing Sbiriu or being dishonoured, scut to inform him ofber 
death. Being at the time on the top of a precipice, urging on the work of 
the aqueduct, the uews Qlled him with such ungovctnable despair that 
he threw himself down and was killed. 



despvir that J 

J 



SARIPUL-I-ZOHAB 81 

pale pink distant leagues of sodden suow, and right across 
a lurid opening in a heavy mass of black clouds the great 
ruined pile of the palace of Khosroe the Magnificent stood 
^cnt, a dismal commentary on splendour and fame. 

The promise of the evening was fulfilled the next day 
1 windy rain, wliich began gently, but afterwards fell in 
rsistent torrents, varied by pungent swirls of sleet and 
Leaving the gash through cliffs with curious 
Bitratificatioii in white and red, formed by the Holwan, 
the day was spent in skirting or crossing low hills. 
The mud was very deep and tenacious, and the rate of 
progress barely two miles an hour. There were no 
caravans, travellers, or population, and no birds or beasts. 
The rain clouds hung low and heavy, mists boiled up 
from among the folds of the hills, the temperature fell 
perceptibly. It was really inspiriting for people pro- 
tected by good mackintoshes. 

After riding for six hours the rain changed into sleet 
and wet snow, blotting out the hills and creating an 
unnatural twilight, in which we floundered in mud up to 
the mules' knees into the filthiest village I have ever 
seen, a compound of foul, green ditches, piles of dissolving 
manure, mud hovels looking as if they were dissolving too, 
leed huts, and an Ilyat village, grouped round the vilest 
of caravanserais, the entrance to which was knee-deep in 
To lodge in it was voted impossible, and the 
t led us in the darkening mist and pelting sleet to 
Ijacent mud hamlet as hopeless -looking on the other 
aide of the bridge, where, standing up to the knees of the 
^Biules in liquid manure, we sought but vainly for shelter, 
lorded the Holwan, and returned to the caravanserai 
tlirougb almost impassable slush. 

It was simply loathsome, with its stench, its foulness. 
Bud its mire, and was already crowded and noisy with 
a and beasts, There was a great courtyard with arched 




JOURNEVS IN PERSIA letteb jt 

recesses all round, too aboniiiinble to be occupied, too 
exposed and ruinous, even bad they been cleaned, to give 
shelter from the dririag sleet. The last resource was to pass 
through an archway into the great, lofty mule stable, on 
both sides of which are similar recesses or mangers, about 
ten feet by seven and about eight feet high. The stable 
was of great size and height with a domed roof. Probably 
it runs half-way round the quadrangle at the back of the 
uninhabitable recesses. There were at least four hundred 
mules in this place, jangling their great bells, and crowds 




of katiTgiSy travellers, and xaptieha, all wet and splashed 
over their heads with mud, some unloading, others mak- 
ing fires and feeding their mules, all shouting when they 
had anything to say, the Babel aggravated by the clatter 
of the rattles of a hundred currj'-combs and the squeals 
of fighting horses. 

The floor was deep with the manure of ages and piled 
with bales and boxes. In the aide recesses, which are 
about the height of a mule's back, the muleteers camped 
with their fires and their goods, and laid the provender 
for their beasts in the front. These places are the 
mangers of the eastern caravanserai, or khan, or inn. 
Such must have been the inn at Bethlehem, and surely 



LETTER IV A ROOM WITH "PRETENSIONS" 83 

the first step to the humiliation of " the death of the 
cross " must have been the birth in the manger, amidst 
the crowd and horrors of such a stable. 

The odour was overpowering and the noise stunning, 
and when our wet, mud-covered baggage animals came 
in, adding to the din, there was hardly room to move, far 
less for the roU in which all mules indulge when the 
loads are taken off; and the crush resulted in a fight, and 
one mule got his fore-feet upon my "manger," and 
threatened to share it with me. It was an awful place 
to come to after a six hours' march in rain and snow, but 
I slid off my mule into the recess, had it carpeted, 
put down my chair, hung a blanket up in front, and 
prepared to brave it, when the inhabitants of this room, 
the one place which has any pretensions to being a room 
in the village, were bribed by an offer of six krans (about 
four shillings) to vacate it for me. Its " pretensions " 
consist in being over a gateway, and in having a door, 
and a square hole looking on the street ; a crumbling 
stair slippery with mud leads up to it The roof leaks 
in every direction, and the slimy floor is full of pools, 
but it is luxury after the caravanserai stable, and with 
one waterproof sheet over my bed and another over 
myself I have fared well, though the door cannot be shut, 
and the rest of the party are in the stable at an 
impassable distance, 

Our language happily has no words in which the 

bltBte of this village can be described. In front of this 

■ loom is _a broken ditch full of slimy greenish water, 

which Hadji took for my tea ! There has been a slight 

snowfall during the night, and snow is impending. We 

have now reached a considerable altitude, and may expect 

cnything. Hadji has just climbed the stair with groans 

" Ya Allah" and has almost wailed ont, " Colonel says 

B go — God help us." 



84 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letteh it 

Kirrind, Jan. S3. — From Saripul-i-Zohab we are 
taking the most southerly of the three routes to Eirman- 
ahah traversed by Sir H. Eawlinson in 1836,^ A sea of 
mud varied by patches of sodden snow, walls of rock 
with narrow passes, great snow-covered mountains, seat 
spectrally for a minute at a time through swirling snoff- 
clouds, black tents of nomads, half-drowned Tillages, and 
a long, cold, steep ascent, among scrub oaks and dwuf 
ash, to snow which was not melting, and the hospitalides 
of a Kurdish village, comprise the interests of the march 
from Saripul to Myan Tak, so far as they lie on the 
surface, but in various ways tliis part of Kurdistan has 
many interests, not to be absolutely ignored even in I 
familiar letter, 

Hure the llyats, who are supposed to constitute a SXk 
of the rural population of Persia, are met with in laije 
numbers, and their brown flocks and herds are still 
picking up a scanty subsistence. The great chief of thia, 
the Guran tribe, holds the region on an annual payment 
to the Persian Government, gives grain to his tribesmen, 
and receives from them, of corn one-half, and of rice two- 
thirds of the crop. These people sow their grain in early 
spring, and then move up with their tlocks to the 
mountain pastures, leaving behind only a few men to 
harvest the crops. They use no manure, this being 
required for fuel, and in the case of rice they allow a 
fallow of at least seven years. There are very few 
cultivators resident upon these lands, but Ilyat camjffi 
occur frequently. 

The region is steeped in history. The wretched 
village of Saripul is the Calah of Asshur and the Halah 
of the Israelitish captivity,^ and gave to the surrounding 
' The Piuhslik of Zohab, now Pemiiin tonitury, is full; deBcribed hj 
Major Rawliueon id a most intereBtiiig pnpor in The Joamal of Vu AsyoJ 
Gtogrnpkicat SocUty, vol. ix, part 1, p. 28. 

' God. X. II ; ii Kings iriii. H ; I Chron. v. 26. 



LETTEB IV THE ALMLAHIS 86 

eomitry the name of Chalonitia. which we have on our 
old maps. A metropolitan See in the fifth century A.D., 
soon after the institution of the Nestorian hierarchy, it 
was called Calah, Halah, and Holwan. If the Diyalah be 
the ancient Gyndes, noteworthy for the singular delay of 
Cyrus on his march to Babylon, and SaripiJ the ancient 
Holwan, and if in addition to tlie numerous Chaldfeaa 
and Sasanian remains there are relics of Semiramis and 
■of the fire-temples of the Magi, the crowd of historic 
ftesociations is almost too much for one day, and I will 
Jeturn to the insignificant details of the journey. 

"We left at nine, crossed the Holwan by a four-arched 
lirick bridge, and in falling snow and deep mud rode 
■over fairly level ground till we came to an abrupt range 
of limestone rock, with a natural rift, across which the 
foundations of a wall still remain. The clouds were 
rolling low, and the snow was driving wildly, so as 
to make it impossible to see the sculptured tablet 
described by Eawlinson and Layard, on which a high- 
priest of the Magi is represented, with one hand raised 
in benediction, and the other grasping a scroll, tlie dress 
being the pontifical robe worn by the Zoroastrian priests, 
with a square cap, pointed in front, and lappeta covering 
tiie mouth. Above this is a tomb with an ornamented 



We were now among a very strange and mysterious 

people, of whose ancestry and actual beliefs very little is 

known. They are Ali-Ilahis, but Europeans often speak 

of them as " Davidites," from their special veneration for 

I King David. This tomb in the rift is called Dukkaui- 

vDaoud, or David's shop, and the people believe that he 

P^still dwells there, and come on pilgrimages and to offer 

animals in sacrifice from all parts of Kurdistan. He is 

believed to work as a smith, and the hitir^is say that he 

makes suits of fine armour. A part of the tomb which 



86 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctto it 

is divided from the rest by a. low partition is believed to 
be a reservoir containing the water which he usea to 
temper his metal A great mound with some building 
in the centre, on the right of the road near this gorge, 
though properly it bears another name, is called by the 
people "David's Fort." Jewish traditions abound, speciall}r 
concerning David, who is regarded by the tribes ss their 
great tutelar prophet. 

The Gorans and Ealhurs, who are the nomadic 
inhabitants of this district, are of a very marked-type of 
phyaiognomy, so Israelitiah indeed that, taken along with 
certain traditions of their origin, their Jewish names, and 
their veneration for David, they have been put forwaid 
as claimants to the dignity of being the " lost tribes." 
The great Hebrew traveller of the twelfth century, to 
whom I have referred before, believed that the whole of 
the Ali-Ilahis were Jews, and writes of 100 synagt^es 
in the Zagros mountains, and of 50,000 Jewish families 
in the neighbourhood. 

As we shall be for some days among these people, I 
will abbreviate Sir H. Eawlinson's sketch of their tenets. 
He considers that Aii-Ilahism bears evident marks of 
Judaism, mixed up with Moslem, Christian, and Sabaan 
legends. The Ali-Ilahis believe in 1001 incarnations of I 
the Godhead in a series; among them Benjamin, Moses, | 
Eliaa, David, Jesus Christ, Ali and Salman his tutor, the I 
Imam Housseiu and the Haftan (or seven bodies), the II 
chief spiritual guides in the early ages of Islam, " and 
each, worshipped as a Deity, is an object of adoration 
in some locality of Kurdistan." The tomb of one of 
these, Eaba YadgTir, is their holy place, and this was 
. regarded as the dwelling of Elijah at the time when the 
Arabs invaded Persia. All these incarnations are regarded 
as of one and the same person. Alt that changes is the 
bodily fonn of the Divine manifestation. There are 



IXITKR IV 



THE DATES OF ZAGBOS 



degrees in the perfection of the development, and the 
mo3t perfect forms are Benjamin, David, and Ali. 

I'racticaUy, however, the metaphysical speculations 
involved in this creed of successive incaraationa are un- 
known, and the Imam Ali, the cousin of Mohammed, is 
the great object of worship. Though professing Moham- 
medanism the Ali-IIahis are held in great horror by " be- 
lievers," and those of this region lie under the stigma of 
practising unholy rites as a part of their religion, and have 
received the name of " Cliiragh Sonderan," the putters-out 
' of lights.' This accusation. Sir A. H. Layard observes, 

I may he only a calumny invented, like many another, to 
justify persecution. 
Passing through the rift in the Dukkani-Daoud range 
which has led to this digression, we entered an ascend- 
ing valley between the range through which we had 
passed and some wild mountains covered with snow, 
which were then actively eng^ed in brewing a storm. 
Farther on there was irrigation and cultivation, and then 
the wretched village of Pai Tak, and the ruins of a bridge. 
There, the people told us, we must halt, as the caravan- 
• serai at the next place was already full, and we plunged 
■ about in the snow and mud looking for a hovel in which to 
take shelter, but decided to risk going ou, and shortly began 
' the ascent of the remarkable pass known as " The Gates 
■of Zagros," on the ancient highway between Babylonia 
and Media, by which, in a few hours, the mountain 
liarrier of Zagros is crossed, and the plain of KirrJnd, a 
.part of the great Iranian plateau, is reached. 

This great road, which zigzags steeply up the pass, is 
■partly composed of smoothed boulders and partly of 
natural rock, somewliat dressed, and much worn by the 
^eoDtinual passage of shod animals. It is said to be much 
■like a torrent bed, but the snow was lying heavily upon 
' See Sir A. H. Laysrd's Early Aiivenlura, vol. i. p, 317. 



B8 



.TOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



it, filling up its inequalities. Dwarf oaks, hawtboru, a^h, 
and otlier scrub find root-hold iu every crevice. All 
that may be ugly was draped in pure white, and looking 
back from the surrounding glitter, the view of low ranges 
lying iu indigo gloom was very striking. On the ascent 
there is a remarkable arch of great blocks of white 
marble, with a vaulted recess, called the " Tak-i-Girreh,' 
" the arch holding the road," which gives the populsi 
name of Gardan-i- Tak-i-Girreh (the pass of Tak-i-Girreh] 
to the ascent, though the geographers call it Akabah-i' 
Holwan {the defile of Holwan). 

Mtet the deep mud of the earlier part of the march ii 
wfe a pleasure to ride through pure, deep, powdery snow 
and to find the dirt of the village of Myan Tak, a Kurd 
ish hamlet situated on a mountain torrent among stee] 
hills and small trees, covered with this radiant mantle 
The elevation of the pass ia 4630 feet, but Myan Tak i 
at a lower altitude an hour farther on. 

The small and ruinous caravanserai was really full o 
caravans detained by the snowstorm, and we lodged ii 
a Kurdish house, typical of the style of architectuJ 
common among the settled tribes. Within a wide door 
way without a door, high enough for a loaded mule ti 
enter, is a very large room, with a low, flat mud rool 
supported on three rows of misshapen trunks of trees 
with their branches cut off about a foot from the stem 
all black and shiny with smoke. Mud and rubbl 
platforms, two feet high, run along one side and oni 
end, and on the end one there is a clay, beehive 
shaped fireplace, but no chinmey. Under this platfom 
the many fowls are sliut in at night by a stone at thi 
hole by which they enter. Within this room is a per 
fectly dark stable of great size. Certainly forty malai 
besides asses and oxen, were lodged in it, and the ovet 
flow shared the living-room with a number of Eurdl 



A KUKDISH DWELLING fl9 

Uirffis, servants, dog8, soldiers, and Europeans. The 
aiture consisted of guns and swords hanging on the 



The owner is an old Kurd with some handsome sons 
rith ruddy complexions and auburn hair. The big house 
I patriarchal roof, where the patriarch, his sons, 
^"wives and children, and their animals, dwell 
The women, however, had all been got rid of 
The old Kurd made a great fire on the dais, 
being plentiful, and crouched over it. My bed 
I near it, and enclosed by some reed screens, 
chairs and a table, with routes, maps, writing 
laterials, and a good lantern upon it, an excellent 
' of soup and a leg of mutton, cooked at a bonfire 
1 the middle of the floor, and the sight of all the 
servants and katirgis lying round it, warm and comfort- 
able, and the knowledge that we were above the mud, 
the clouds of blinding smoke which were the only draw- 
back scarcely affected the cheerfulness and comfort of 
the blazing, unstinted fire. The doorway gave not only 
ample ventilation but a brilliant view of snow, and of 
myriads of frosty stars. 

It was infinitely picturesque, with the fitful firelight 
falling on the uncouth avenues of blackened tree-stumps, 
on big dogs, on mild-eyed ox faces and long ass ears, on 
turbaned Indian heads, and on a confused crowd of Turks, 
Kurds, and Persians, some cooking, some sleeping, some 
smoking, while from the black depth beyond a startling 
bray of an ass or the abortive shriek of a mule occasion- 
ally proceeded, or a stray mule created a commotion by 
I mshing in from the snow outside. 

' I slept comfortably, till I was awakened early by 
various country sounds — -the braying of au ass into my 
ear (for I was within a few inches of the stable), the 
crowing of cocks, and some hens picking up crumbs upon 




my bed. The mules were loaded in the living-room. 
The mercury was only 26" at 9 A.M., and under cloud- 
less BimsLine the powdery snow glittered and crackled. 
There were difflcultiea ahead, we heard. The roail 
heavily hlocked with snow was only just open, and the 
Persian post, which should have passed forty-eight hours 
before, had not been heard of. showing that the snow is 
very deep farther on. 

It was beautiful, that uplifted, silent world of snow 
and mountains, on whose skirts for some miles grew small 
apple and pear trees, oak, ash, and hawthorn, each twig a 
coral spray. In the deepest depression, among great 
rocks, now masses of snow, tumbles a now parti^y 
arrested stream, gleaming with icicles, one of the head- 
waters of the Holwan. After getting through this 
picturesque forest of scrub, the road emerges on the 
plateau of the KiiTind valley, the greatest altitude of 
which is about 5800 feet. It is said to be irrigated and 
fertile. It is now, as I describe it, a wide valley, with- 
out a tree or bush, a rolling plain of snow from two to 
three feet deep, marked only by lines made by birds' feet 
and the beating of the tips of birds' wings, the track across 
it a corrugated trench, wide enough for nne mule, the sun 
brilliant, the sky blue, the surface of the snow flashing 
light from millions of crystals with a glitter not to be 
borne, all dazzling, " glistering," silent, — a white world 
and a blue heaven, with a sun " shining in his strength," 
— light without heat. 

It has been a tremendous day's march, only fourteen 
miles in seven and a half hours of severe toil ! The 
katirgis asked ns to keep together in case of dif^culties 
with caravans. Difficulties indeed ! A mild term ! I 
was nearly smashed, I little knew what meeting a 
caravan in these circumstances meant till we met the 
first sixty animals, each laden with two heavy packing- 



IV CABAVANS IN COLLISION 91 

The question arises who is to give way, and wlio 
to drive hia heavily- laden heasts off the track, to 
gle, flounder, and fall in three feet of snow, not to 
up again without being unloaded, and even then 
h difBculty. 

The rub came on a bank near a stream where there 
1 deep drift. I decided to give way, but notliing 
I induce my mule to face the snow. An orderly 
3 in front and Hadji behind. Down the track came 
ixty animals, loaded with their great packing-cases, 
"hey could not and would not give way, and the two 
'avans came into colliaion. There were mules 
struggling and falling, loads overturned, muleteers yell- 
ing and roaring, Hadji groaning " God lielp us ! " my mule, 
a new one, a big strong animal, unused to a bit, plunging 
and kicking, in the middle of a " free fight," I was 
struck hard on my ankle by a packing-case and nearly 
knocked off. Still, down they came, in apparently 
endless hordes ; my mule plunged her bridle off, and 
kicked most violently ; there were yella all round. My 
snow spectacles were knocked off and lost, then came 
another smash, in which I thought a bone was broken. 
Fearing that I should be laid up with a broken limb for 
weeks in some horrible caravanserai, and really desperate 
[ with the danger and confusion, I called over and over 
I again to Hadji to get off and pull my mule into the snow 
or I should be killed ! He did not stir, but sat dazed on 
his pack moaning " God help us ! " till he, the mule, and 
the load were rolled over in the drift The oiderly con- 
i< trived to get the bridle on my mule, and to back his 
{own in front of me, and as each irrepressible animal 
rolled down the bank he gave its load a push, which, nicely 
nlanced as these loads are, made it swerve, and saved 
[■me from further damage. Hadji had rolled oH' four times 
Ljppeviously, and the last I saw of him at that time and 



of the caravan was a man, five luiiles, and their loads 
buried in the snow. The personal results to me of what 
is euphemistically called a " ditKculty," are my blue 
glasses gone, a number of bmiaes, a badly-tom riding- 
skirt, and a bad cut, which bled profusely, and then the 
blood froze. 

A number of caravans snowed up for several days 
were (71 route, and there were many similar encounters, 
and donkeys and mules falling with their loads and 
mil inn into the deep snow, and kutirgis coming to blows 
over the right-of-way. If a donkey is forced off tlie 
track it goes down at once. I unfortunately caught my 
foot in the pack of one and rolled it over, and as it dis- 
appeared in the snow its pack and saddle fell over its 
head and displayed the naked vertebrie of its poor back. 

This Kirrind valley must be fully twenty miles long by 
from two to five broad, but there was only one village 
inhabited and two in mins. As we floundered along in 
the snow with our jaded -animals, two well-armed men on 
fine horses met and joined ns, sent by the Ag)ui Abdul 
Eahim, son of the British agent at Kirmanshah, whose 
guests we are to be. Following thera was a taktravxin 
or litter for me, a wooden box with two side doors, font 
feet high, sb: feet long, and three feet wide. At each end 
are long shafts, and between each pair of shafts a superb 
mule, and each mule has a man to lead him. I could 
never use such n thing except in case of a broken limb, 
but I am very grateful to Abdul Eahim for sending it 
fifty-six miles. 

The temperature fell with the sun ; the snowy bilU 
took on every shade of rose and pink, and in a universal 
blush of tender colouring we reached Kirrind. All of ft 
sudden the colour died out, the rose-flushed sky changed 
to blue-gray, and pallid wastes of unbroken snow 
stretching into the gray distance made a glorious winter 



KIRRIND 93 

mdacape. We are now fairly in for the rigours of a 
i'ersian winter. 

Kirriud, the capital of the Kirrind Kurds, is either 

Esquely or picturesquely situated in and around a 

r gap in a range of lofty hills, through which the 

A.b-i-Kirriud rushes, after rising in a sprir^ immediately 

[nd. The gap suggests the word jaws, and in these 

>eD jaws rise one above another tlat-roo£ed houses 

fgling down upon the plain among vineyards, poplars, 

Hows, fruit-trees, and immense walnuts and gardens. 

B stud to be 900 houses, but many of them are 

■minoua. The stream which bursts from the hills is 

divided into innumerable streamlets, which must clothe 

these gardens with beauty. 

A fardsh riding on ahead had engaged a house, so 
we avoided the horrors of the immense caravanserai, 
crammed to - night with storm - bound caravans. The 
house is rough, but has three adjoining rooms, and the 
ftervanta are comfortable. A fire, with its usual accom- 
paniment of stinging smoke, fails to raise the temperature 
of my room to the freezing-point, yet it is quite possible 
to be comfortable and employ oneself. 

Mahidaahi, Jan. S4- — My room at Kirrind was very 

cold. The ink froze. The mercury fell to 2° below 

zero in it, and outside in the sun was only 14' at 8.30. 

There was a great Bal)el at starting. Some men had sold 

four chickens for the high price of 2 s. each, the current 

price being 6d., and had robbed the servants of two, and 

[ ^ley took one of the mules, which was sent after us by 

gwiofBciaL Slipping, floundering, and falling in the deep 

mow, and getting entangled among caravans, we rode 

1 day over rolling levels. The distance seemed inter- 

inable over the glittering plains, and the pain and 

3 produced by the intense cold were hard to bear, 

^Bud it was not possible to change the cramped position by 




walkiujj. The mercury fell to i", us with tired 
we toiled up the slope on which Harunahad stands. 

A very large caravanserai and a village of aisty houses 
occupy the site of a town built by Harun-al-Raachid ou 
the upper waters of the Kerkbah. It has the reputatioD 
of being oue of the cohlest places in Persia, so cold that 
its Ilyat inhabitants desert it in winter, leaT,-ing two or 
three men who raake a business of supplying caravans. 
Usually people come out of the villages in numbers as 
we arrive, but we passed group after group of ruinous 
hovels without seeing a creature. We obtained awfully 
cold rooms at a great height above a bazar, now deseited- 
I write " awfully " advisedly, for the mercury in them at 
sunset was 2° below zero, the floors were plaster, alipperj" 
with frozen moisture, the walls were partly wood, with 
great apertures between the planks ; where they were mud 
the blistered plaster was fringed with icicles. Later the 
mercury sank to 12°, and before morning to 16° below 
zero, and the hot water froze in my basin before I could 
use it ! 

We were to have started at eight, as there was no 
possible way of dividing the nine hours' march, but when 
the time came the katirgis said it was too cold to rope 
the loads, a little later that we could only get half-way, 
and later that there was no accommodation for mules 
half-way and that we must go tlie whole way I At nine 
the mercury was at 4° below zero, and the slipperiness 
was fearful. The poor animals could scarcely keep on 
their feet. We have crossed two high passes, Nal 
Shikan {the Horse-Shoe breaking pass) and the Charzabar 
Pass, in tremendous snow, riding nine hours, only dis- 
mounting to walk down one hill. At the half-way 
hamlet I decided to go on, having still a lingering pre- 
judice against sharing a den with a quantity of human. 
beings, mules, asses, poultry, and dogs. 




LETTEH IV THE PLAIN OF SUHIDASHT 95 

On one long ascent we encountered a " blizzard," 
when the mercury was only 3° above zero. It was awful. 
The naen covered their heads with their ahbas aud turned 
their backs to the wind, I got my heavy mackintosh 
over everything, but in taking o£f three pairs of gloves 
for one minute to button it the pain of my band was 
literally excruciating. At the summit the snow was four 
feet deep, and a number of mules were down, but after 
getting over the crest of the Nal Shikan Pass and into 
the Zobeideh valley it became better. But after every 
descent there was another ascent to face till we reached 
the pass above the Cheshmeh-i-Charzabar torrent, in a 
picturesque glen, with a village and some primitive flour 

Below this height lies the vast and fertile plain of 

Mahidasht, one expanse of snow, broken by mud villages 

looking like brown islands, and the truncated cone of 

Goree, a seat of tlie ancient fire-worship. In the centre 

of the plain is an immense caravanserai with some houses 

about it. When this came into sight it was only five 

miles off, but we were nearly three hours in reaching it ! 

The view was wonderful Every speck on the vast plain 

was seen distinctly ; then came a heavy acow blink, 

above which hovered ghosts of snow mountains rising 

I into a pale green sky, a dead and lonely wilderness, 

I looking as if all things which lived and moved had long 

ago vanished from it. Those hours after first sighting 

the village were very severe. It seemed to grow no 

nearer. I was half-dead with the journey of twenty-two 

miles at a slow foot's pace, and was aching and cramped 

I irom the intense cold, for as twilight fell the mercury 

f sank to 3° below zero. The Indian servants, I believe, 

k 'SuiTered more than I did, and some of the hatirgis even 

lore than they. 

At last by a pointed brick bridge we crossed the 




little river of Mahidasht, and rode into the house of 
the headman, who is a sort of steward of Abdul 
Rahitu, our future boat, the owner of many villages on 
this plain. The house is of the better class of 
Kurdish houses, with a broad passage, and a room on 
each aide, at the end a great, low, dark room, half living- 
room, half stable, which accommodates to-night some of the 
mules, the muleteers, the servants, and the men of the 
family. Beyond this again is a large stable, and below- 
ground, reached by a sloping tunnel, is the sheep-fold. 
One room has neither door nor window, mine has aa 
outer and inner door, and a fire of live embers in a hole 
in the floor. 

The family in vacating the room have left their goods 
behind, — two plank beds at one end heaped with carpeU 
and felts, a sacking cradle hanging from the roof, two 
clay jars five feet high for storing grain, and in the 
takckahs, or recesses of the walls, mmovars or tea-urns, 
pots, metal vases, cartridge belts, and odds and ends. 
Two old guns, an old sword, and a coarse coloured print 
of the Russian Imperial family are on the walL 

I was lifted from the mule to my bed, covered 
with all available wraps, a pot of hot embers put 1^ 
the bed, my hands and feet rubbed, hot syrup coloured 
with tea produced in Russian glasses, and in two 
hours I was able to mova The caravan, which we 
thought could not get through the snow, came in three 
hours later, men and mules thoroughly knocked up, and 
not till nine could we get a scanty dinner. It has beeB 
a hard day all round. The farashes in the kitchen are 
cursing the English sahibs, who will travel in the winter, 
wishing our fathers may be burned, etc, two of the 
muleteers have been howling with pain for the last two 
hours, and I went into the kitchen to see the poor 
fellowa. 




LRTTBR IV THE PLAIN OF MAHIDASHT 97 

In a comer of the big room, among the rough trunks 

of trees which support the Booty roof, the muleteers were 

lying in a heap in their big-sleeved felt coats round a 

E big fire, about another the servants were cooking their 

Lfood. the faraskes were lying round anotlier, and some of 

the house people about a fourth, and through smoke and 

lame a background of mules and wolf-like dogs was dimly 

sen, a gleam now and then falling into the dark stable 

iejond, where the jaded baggage animals were lying in 

japs. 

Mahidaaht is said to be one of the finest and most fertile 

"plains in Persia, seventy-two miles long by fifteen broad, 

and is irrigated throughout by a small stream swarming 

with turtles. Its population, scattered over it in small 

villages, is estimated — over-estimated probably — at 

4000. At a height of 505O feet the winters are severe. 

The anow is nearly three feet deep already, and more is 

impending. 

The mercury in my room fell to 5° below zero before 
midnight, but rose for a gray cloudy day. The men and 
animals were so done up that we could not start till 
nearly eleven. The march, though not more than sixteen 
miles, was severe, owing to the deep snow and cold wind. 
Five miles over the snowy billows of the Mahidasht 
plain, a long ascent, on which the sti-ong north wind was 
Bcarcely bearable, a succession of steep and tiresome 
ridges, many " difficulties " in passing caravans, and then 
a gradual descent down a long wide valley, opened upon 
the high plateau, on which Kirmanshah, one of the most 
important cities in Persia, is situated. 

Trees, bare and gaunt, chiefly poplars, rising out of 
iinsullied snow, for two hours before we reached it, 
denoted the whereabouts of the city, which after many 
disappointments bursts iipon one suddenly. The view 
from the hill above the town was the most glorious snow 

VOL. 1 H 



98 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LErraa iv 

view I ever saw. All around, rolled to r great height, 
smooth as the icing of a cake, lilUs, billovry like the 
Bwell of the Pacific after a storm — an ocean of bdow ; 
below them a plateau equally unsullied, on the east side of 
which rises the magnificently precipitous Besitun range, 
sublime in its wintry grandeur, while on the distant side 
of the plateau pink peaks raised by an atmospbeiic 
illusion to a colossal height hovered above the snow 
blink, and walled in the picture. Snow was in the air, 
snow clouds were darkening over the Besitun range; 
except for those pink peaks there were no atmospheric 
eETecta ; the white was very pallid, and the gray was very 
black ; no illusions were possible, the aspect was grim, 
desolate, and ominous, and even before we reached the 
foot of the descent the huge peaks and rock masses of 
Besitun were blotted out by swirls of snow. 

Kirmanshah, approached from the south-west, added no 
elements of picturesqueness to the effect A ruinous wall 
much too large for the shrunken city it encloses, parts of 
it lying in the moat, some ruinous loopholed towers, lines 
of small domes denoting bazars below, a few good-look- 
ing houses rising above the insignificant mass, gardens, 
orchards, vineyards, aud poplars stretching up the southerly 
hoUow behind, aud gardens, now under frozen water, to 
the north, made up a not very interesting contrast with the 
magnificence of natura 

We circled much of the ruinous wall on thin ice, 
turned in between high walls and up an alley cumbered 
with snow, dismounted at a low door, were received by a 
number of servants, aud were conducted through a frozen 
courtyard into a handsomely -carpeted room with divans 
beside a blazing fire, a table in the centre covered with 
apples, oranges, and sweetmeats, and the large Jubilee 
photograph of Queen Victoria hanging over the fire- 
pkce. I. L. B. 



lonVB T HADJI KHALIL 

^^^^r LETTEB Y 



KlRJIAKBH&H, Jan. SI. 

Tma hospitable house 13 the residence of the British 
Agent or Vakil tor Kirmanshah, in whose absence at 
Tihran, his son, Abdul Eahim, performs the duties of 
hospitality in a most charming manner, as if though a 
very busy man he had nothing else to do but carry out 
the wishes of his guests. His hospitality is moat unob- 
trusive also, and considerate. If such a wish is expressed 
as to visit the sculptures of the Takt-i-Bostan, or anything 
else, eveiythiog is quietly and beautifully arranged ; a 
landau-and-four with outriders, superb led saddle-horses, 
and arrangements for coffee are ready outside the walls, 
with the host as cicerone, ready to drive or ride at the 
pleasure of his guests. The rooms in which he receives 
Europeans are on the opposite side of the courtyard from 

■ the bouse, and have been arranged according to European 

I ideas. 

The family history, as usually told, is an interesting 
one. They are Arabs, and the grandfatlier of our host, 
Hadji Khalil, was a trusted hatirgi in the employment of 
Sir Henry EawHnson, and saved his life when he fell 

Lirom a scaffolding while copying the Besitun inscriptions, 
good qualities, and au honesty of character and 
Me rare among Orientals, eventually placed him in the 
mportant position of British VakU here, and lie became a 
Mliab subject, and was succeeded in his position by his 



100 JOURNBYS IN PERSLA. LEnca t 

soil, Agha Hassan, who is now by virtue of singular 
business capacities the wealthiest man in this province 
and possibly in Persia, and bears the very highest char- 
acter for trustworthiness and honour.' 

Abdul Rahim is a very fine-looking man, with noticeable 
eyes, very large and prominent. He has a strong sense 
of humour, which tilts over hia face in an amused smile. 
He and his father are verj' large landowners, and are 
always adding land to land, and are now the owners of 
the magnificent sculptures and pleasure-grounds of the 
Takt-i-Boatan. They are bankers likewise, and money- 
lenders, merchants on a large scale, and iiave built a very 
fine caravanserai, with great brick warehouses for the use 
of traders. Agha Hassan travels en prince, driving to 
Tihran and back in an English landau with four lioisee 
and a number of outriders and attendants, and his son 
entertains visitors in the same way, mounting even the 
outriders and pipe-bearers on well-bred Arabs. "WTieo 
he walks in the city it is like a royal progi'esa. Eveiy- 
body bows low, nearly to the ground, and his pnise- 
bearer follows, distributing alms among the poor. 

I mention all this because it is a marvel in Persia, 
where a reputation for wealth is the last thing a rich 
man desires. To elevate a gateway or to give any 
external sign of affluence ia to make himself a mark for 
the ofBcial rapacity which spares none. The policy is to 
let a man grow quietly rich, to " let the sheep's woti 
grow," but as soon as he shows any enjoyment of wealth. 

' 1 had the pleasure of seeing Agha Hassan at the British Lotion at 
Tihiun. He is charming, both in appearoDce and manner, a specimrai 0^ 
the highest type of Arab good breeding, with a conrteuua kindlinen and 
graeo of manner, and ia said to bnve mads a very fnraurable imprt^otf 
when ho went to Englaml lately to be made a C.M.G. Both faOier onA 
son wear the Arab dress, in plain colours but rich toaterials, with vo^ 
largo white turbans of DimsBcus embroideiy in gold ailk, and speak on^ 
Arabic and Per^an. 



KIRKANSHAH 101 

to deprive him of hia f^ains, according to a common 
'Persian expression, " He ia ripe, he must he squeezed." 
The Vaiil and his son are the only men here who are 
not afraid to show their wealth, and for the simple 
that it cannot be touched, because they are 
Sritish subjects. They can neither be robbed, squeezed, 
lior mulcted beyond the legitimate taxation by Persian 
officials, and are able to protect the property of others 
when it is entrusted to their keeping. British protection 
IS been in fact the making of these men. 
The m^iutffe is simple. The dining-room is across the 
frozen courtyard. The meals are served in European 
foshion, the major-domo being an ancient man, " bom in 
4he house," who occasionally inserts a remark into the 
4!Onversation or helps his master's memory. The inter- 
preter sits on the floor during meals. I breakfast in my 
room, but lunch and dine with our host, who spends 
' the evening in the salon ; slierbet is provided instead of 
' wine. Abdul Eahim places me at the head of the 
. table, and I am served first ! The interpreting ia from 
Persian into Hindustani, and vice vcrsd. Our host 
expresses almost daily regret that he cannot talk with me 
1 politics ! 
Eirmanshah, which is said to be a favourable speci- 
1 of a Persian town, is absolutely hideous and unin- 
It is really half in ruins. It has suffered 
terribly from "plague, pestilence, and famine," and from 
the awful rapacity of governors. It once had 12,000 
honses, but the highest estimate of its present population 
Is 25,000. So severely have the town and province been 
oppressed that some years ago three-quarters of the 
inhabitants migrated, the peasants into Turkey, and the 
townspeople into the northern province of Azerbijan. 
If a governor pays 30,000 tumans (£10,000) to the 
^ah for an appointment, of which he may be deprived 



108 JOURNEYS IS PERSIA LErreaT 

any day, it can Bcarcely be expected of Oriental or 
indeed of any human nature, that he will not make a 
good thing of it wliile he has it, and squeeze all he can 
out of the people. 

The streets are very narrow, and look narrower jast 
now, because the snow is heaped almost to the top of the 
mud walls, which are not broken up as in Turkish towns 
by projecting lattice windows, but are absolutely blank, 
with the exception of low-arched entrances to the courtr 
yards within, closed by heavy, unpainted wooden doors, 
studded with wooden nails. The causeways, on which, 
but for the heaps of slippery snow two men might walk 
abreast, have a ditch two or three feet wide between 
them, which is the roadway for animals. There are 
some open spaces, abounding in ruinous heaps, others 
where goods are unloaded, surrounded with warehouses, 
immense brick bazars with domed roofs, a citadel or ark, 
where the Governor lives, a large parade ground and 
barracks for 2000 men. mosques of no pretensions, 
public baths, caravanserais, brick warehouses behind the 
bazars, public gardens, with fountains and avenues of 
poplars, a prison, and some good houses like this one, 
liidden behind high mud walls. Although the snow 
kindly veils a good deal of deformity, the city impresses 
one as ruinous and decayed ; yet it has a large trade, and 
is regarded as one of the most prosperous places in the 
Empire.' 

The bazars are spacious and well stocked with 
Kuropean goods, especially with Manchester cottons of 
colours and patterns suited to Oriental taste, which 
loves carnation red. There are many Jews, otherwise 
tlie people are Shiah Moslems, with an increasing 
admixture of the secret sect of the Bdbis. In some 

' Ajoameyofninetnotitlism Peraia,cliUflj in the nest and north-wait, 
ff (irlncwl me that this aspect of ruin and ilecaj' is nDireru]. 



SB 7 MOSLEM INTOLERANCE 103 

'respects the Shiahs are more fanatical than the Suonis, 
1, for instance, it is quite possible to visit a mosque in 
Xuikey, but here a Christian is not allowed to cross the 
threshold of the outer gate. Certain customs are also 
more rigidly observed. A Persian woman would be in 
danger of death from the moh if she appeared unveiled 
in the streets. When I walked through the town, 
though attended by a number of men, the major-domo 
begged me to exchange my gauze veil for a mask, and 
even when I showed this deference to custom the 
jttssing through the bazars was very unpleasant, the men 
being decidedly rude, and iuclmed to hoot and use had 
language. Even the touch of a Cliristian is regarded as 
polluting, and I nearly got into trouble by handling a 
flap-jack," mistaking it for a piece of felt. The bazars 
■are not magnificent Ko rich carpets or other goods are 
exposed to view for fear of exactions. A buyer wanting 
■uch things must send word privately, and have them 
brought to his house. 

Justice seems to be here, much aa in Turkey, a 
marketable commodity, which the working classes are 
■too poor to buy. A man may be kept in prison because 

is too poor to get out, hut justice is usually sunamary, 
mSid men are not imprisoned for long terms. If prisoners 
bave friends, the friends feed them, if not they depend 
on charity, and charity is a Moslem virtue. There is no 
prison here for women. They are punished by having 
their heads shaved, and by being taken through the 
town on BBSes. Various forma of torture are practised. 
Much as burning with hot irons, the bastinado, and 
iSqueezing the fingers in a vice. The bastinado is also 
Snost extensively used as a punishment. 

Yesterday fay appointment we were received by the 
Governor of the Province. Kiding through the slippery 
<now-heaped alleys is not what Europeans would think 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



oF, auil our host with his usual courtesy humoured the 
caprice by walking with us himself, preceded by six 
fardshes (lit. carpet-spreaders) and followed by his purse- 
bearer casting money to the poor, and a train of serviuits. 
The Citadel, or Governor's residence, like all else, is 
forlorn, dirty, and ruinous in its approaches, which are 
long vaulted corridors capable of much adornment 
Crowds of soldiers, viollahs, dervishes, and others were 
there to see the visit, which was one of ceremony. The 
Palace and Government offices are many-wiudowed, well- 
built brick - and - tile buildings, arranged round a latge 
place with trees and fountains. 

Two little fellows in scarlet uniform were at the 
entrance, and the lobby upstairs was crowded with 
Persian and Negro aer^'auts, all in high, black lambskin 
caps, tight black trousers, and tight coats with full 
skirts. The Governor received us in a very lai^e, lofty. 
vacant'Iooking room, and shook hands. I never saw n 
human being more nearly like an ape in appearance, and 
a loud giggle added to the resemblance. This giggle and 
a fatuous manner are possibly assumed, for he has the 
widespread reputation of being a very able man, shrewd 
in business and officially rapacious, as was liis father 
before him. The grotesque figure, not more than five 
feet high, was dressed in a black Astrakan cap, a coat of 
fine buff Russian kerseymere with full skirts, and tight 
trousers of the same, and an under-coat of rich, Herman 
Bilk brocade, edged with costly fur. He made a few 
curt remarks to his foreign guests, and then turned to 
Abdul Babim, and discussed local affairs for the 
remainder of a very long visit. 

A table covered with exquisite -looking sweetmeats 
was produced, and we- were regaled with tee. & la 
Ewssc in Kussian glasses, ice-cream, and ga::. Then 
young, diminutive, raw-looking soldiers in scarlet coats 



LETTER V A PROVINCIAL GOVERNOR 105 

and scarlet trousers with blue stripes marched into the 
courtyard, and stood disconsolately in the snow, and two 
bands brayed and shrieked for an hour. Then kaliaiis 
were smoked, and coffee was handed round, the cups 
being in gold filigree holders incriisted with turquoises. 
This was the welcome signal for the termination of a 
very tedious visit. The reception-room is a dismal 
combination of Persian and European taste, invariably a 
failure. The carpets are magnificent, but the curtains 
are common serge bordered with white cotton lace, and 
the tea-table with its costly equipments was covered 
with a tawdry cretonne cover, edged with some inferior 
black cotton lace. The lofty walls of plain plaster of 
Paris have their sirapUcity destroyed by some French 
girandoles with was grapes hanging from them. 

The Governor returned the visit to-day, arriving on 
horseback with fully forty mounted attendants, and was 
received in a glass room on the roof, furnished with 
divans, tables covered with beautiful confectionery, and 
tea and coffee equipages. The conversation was as local 
as yesterday, in spite of our host's courteous effoits to 
include the strangers in it. Tlie Governor asked if I 
■were going to Tihran to be Hakim- to the Shah's karam, 
which our host says is the rumour in £irmaushah ! 
During such visits there are crowds of attendants in the 
room all the time pouring out tea, filling kalians, and 
washing cups on the floor, and as any guest may be a 
and an enemy, the conversation is restricted to 
.ggeratetl compliments and superficial remarks. 
Everything is regulated by an elaborate code of 
etiquette, even the complimeuts are meted out by rule, 
and to give a man more than he is entitled to is under- 
Btood to be intended as sarcasm. The number of bows 
lade by the entertainer, tlie distance he advances to 
Leet hb guest, and the position in which he seats Inm 



H was 

■spy 

■Eexa; 




106 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letieb v 

are matters of careful calculation, and the slightest mis- 
take in any particular ia liable to be greatly resented by 
a superior. 

The Persian is a most ceremonious being. Like the , 
■fapauese he is trained from infancy to the etiquette of 
his class, and besides the etiquette of class there is here 
^he etiquette of religion, which is far more strict than 
n Turkey, and yields only when there is daily contact, as 
u the capital, between Moslems and Christians, Thus, 
a Moslem will not accept refreshments from a Cbristiim, 
and he will not smoke a pipe after a Christian even if 
he is bis guest, and of equal or higher rank. 

The custom is for a visitor, as in the case of the 
Governor, to announce his visit previously, and be and 
his train are met, when he is the superior, by a mounted 
servant of the recipient of the honour, who precedes him 
to the door, where the servants are arranged according to 
their rank, and the boat waits to take his hand and lead 
bim to a seat. On entering the room a well-bred 
Persian knows at once what place he ought to take, and 
it is rare for such a fiasco as that referred to in Luke 
xiv. 9 to occur. Eefresbments and pipes are served at 
regulated intervals, and the introduction of a third cup 
of^tea or coffee and a tidrd MHan is the signal for the 
guest to retire. But it is necessary to ask and receive 
permission to do so, and elaborate forma of speech 
regulated by the rank of the visitor are used on the 
occasion. If he ia of equal or superior rank, the hosl, 
bowing profoundly, replies that he can have no other wish 
than that of his guest, that the house has been purified by 
his presence, that the announcement of the visit brought 
good luck to the house, that bis headache or toothache 
has been cured by his arrival, and these flowery com- 
pliments escort the ordinary guest to the door, but if 
he be of superior rank the host walks in advance ' 



I-ETTER T THE ETIQUETTE OF PIPES 107 

the foot of the stairs, and repeats the compliments 
there. 

The etiquette concerning pipes is most elaborate.' 
Kalians are invariably used among the rich. The great 
man brings his own, and his own pipe-bearer. The ' 
ktdiav- is a water pipe, and whatever its form the 
principle is the same, the smoke being conducted to 
the bottom of a libera! supply of water, to be sucked up 
in bubbles through it with a guttling noise, as in the 
Indian " hubble-bubble." This water-holder is decanter- 
shaped, of plain or cut glass, with a wide mouth; the 
fire-holder, as in the case of the Governor's pipe, is often 
a work of high art, in tliin gold, chased, engraved, 
decorated with repoitssd work, or incrusted with tur- 
quoises, or ornamented with rich enamel, very costly, 
£iO or even £50 being paid by rich men for the decora- 
tion of a single pipe-head. Between this and the water- 
holder is a wooden tube about fourteen inches long, from 
one end of which an inner tube passes to the bottom of 
the water. A hole in the side of the tube atlmits the 
flexible smoking tube, more used in Turkey than in 
Persia, or the wooden stem, about eighteen inches long. 
The fire-holder is lined with clay and plaster of Paris, 
Besides these there is the wind-guard, to prevent the 
fire from falling or becoming too hot, usually of silver, 
with dependent silver chains, and four or six silver or 
>ld chains tei-miuating in llat balls hang from the fire- 
Ider. 

The kalian is one of the greatest institutions of 
Persia No man stirs without it, and as its decoration 
gives an idea of a man's social position, immense sums 
are lavished upon it, and the pipe-bearer is a most 
important person. The lighting is troublesome, and 

' The reader curious as to this miii other customs of modem Persia 
I lluiald read Dr. Wiila'a book. The Land of the Lion and the Sun. 



Kolc 
■■Pec 



108 JOURNEVS IS PERSIA lbitibt 

after all there seoms " much ado about notliiiig," for & 
few whiffs exhaust its capacities. 

The tobacco, called tumhaku, which is smotied in 
kalians is exceptionally poisooous. It cannot be used 
the first year, and improves with age. being preserveii 
in bags sewn up in raw hide. Unless it is moistened it 
produces alarming vertigo. When the lalian is required, 
about three-quarters of an ounce is n]oist#ned, squeeied 
like a sponge, and packed in the fire-holder, and morsels 
of live charcoal, if possible made from the root of the 
vine, are laid upon it and blown into a strong flame. 
The pipe-bearer takes two or three draws, and with an 
obeisance hands it with much solemnity to his master. 
Abdul liahim smokes three or four pipes every evening 
and coflee served with the last is the signal for his 
departure. 

A guest, if he does not bring his own pipe and pipe- 
bearer, has a kalian offered to him, but if the host be 
of higher rank any one but an ignoramus refuses it till 
he has smoked first. If under such circimi stances a 
guest incautiously accepts it, he is invariably mortified by 
seeing it sent into the ante-room to be cleaned and refilled 
before his superior will smoke. If it be proper for him lo 
take it, he offers it in order of rank to all present, but 
takes good care that none accept it till he has enjoyed 
it, after which the attendant passes it round according to 
rank. In cases of only oue kalian and several guests, 
they srooke in order of position, but each one must pay 
the compliment of suggesting that some one else should 
smoke before himself The etiquette of smoking is most 
rigid, I heard of a case here in which a ■mollah, who 
objected to smoke after a European, oflfered it to one 
after he had smoked it himself — so gross a piece of 
impertinence that the other called the pipe-bearer, 
saying, " You can break that pipe to pieces, aod burn 



PERSIAN CARPETS 109 

the stick, I do not care to smoke it," upon which the 
wllah, kiiowing tliat his violation of etiquette merited 
sbai-p rebuke, turned pale and replied, " You say 
uly, I have eaten dirt." 
The lower classes smoke a coarse Turkish tobacco, or 
ik Persian mild sort looking like whitish sawdust, which is 
merely the pounded leaf, stalk, and stem. The pipe they 
lae and carry in their girdles has a small iron, brass, or 
lay head, aod a straight cherry-wood stick, with a very 
ride bore and no mouthpiece, and it is not placed in 
She teeth but is merely held between the lips. Smoking 
i a necessity rather than a luxury iu Persia, and is 
f the great features of social life. 

lanshah is famous for its " rugs," as carpets are 

! in this country. There are from twenty-five to 

thirty kinds with their specific names. Aniline dyes 

have gone far to ruin this manufacture, but their import 

is now prohibited- A Persian would not look at the 

carpets loosely woven and with long pile, which are 

made for the European market, and are bought just now 

from the weavers at ISs. the square yard. A carpet, 

according to Persian notions, must be of fast colours, 

fine pile, scarcely longer than Utrecht velvet, and ready 

to last at least a century. A rug can scarcely be 

, said to liave reached its prime or artistic mellowness of 

I tint till it has been ■' down " for ten years. The per- 

L manence of the dyes is tested by nibbing the rug with a 

I wet cloth, when the worthless colours at once come off. 

; the real, good old Persian carpets there are 
I very few patterns, though colouring and borders vary 
J'considerably. A good carpet, if new, is always stiff; 
Kthe ends when doubled should taeet evenly. There must 
J be no creases, or any signs on the wrong side of darning 
I or "fine-drawing" having been resorted to for taking 
■ out creases, and there must be no blue in the white 



110 JOUKNETS IN PERSIA LirtTEB t 

cotton fiaish at the enda. Carpets with much white are 
prized, as the white becomes primrose, a colour which 
wears well. Our host has given me a rug of the oldest 
Persian pattern, on a white ground, very thiu and fine. 
Lai^e patterns and thick wool are comparatively cheap. 
It is nearly impossible to say what carpeta sell at, for if 
one has been made by a family and poverty presses, it 
may be sold much under value, or if it is a good one and 
they can hold on they may force a carpet fancier to give 
a very high price. From what Abdul Rahim says, the price 
varies frora 13s. to 508. a square yard, the larger carpets, 
about fourteen feet by eight feet, selling for £40.' 

Abdul Raliira took me to see carpet-weaving, a pro- 
cess carried on in houses, hovels, and tents by women 
and children. The " machinery " is portable and mar- 
vellously simple, merely two upright beani3 fixed in the 
floor, with a cross-beam near the top and bottom, round 
which the stout cotton or woollen threads which are the 
basis of the carpet are stretched. The wools are cut in 
short lengths and are knotted round two threads, accord- 
ing to the pattern, which, however elaborate, the weaver 
usually carries in her head. After a few inches have been 
woven in this simple way the right aide is combed and the 
superfluous length cut off with rough scissors. Nothing 
can he more simple than the process or more beautiful 
than the result. The vegetable dyes used are soft and 
artistic, specially a madder red and the various shades of 
indigo. A soft turquoise blue is much used, and an 
"olive green," supposed to be saffron and indigo. The 
dull, rich tints, even when new, are quite beautiful 
The women pursue this work chiefly in odds and ends of 
' A rug only eight foot by five Ewt was given mo LijaPetBi«n id Tihmii 
wbicli wu vnluwt for dut; at Erzerum at £3 the square jard, with tha 
option of selling it to the Cuat^ini .house at that price, which implies th*t 
ita value ia Froni 7Ds. to SOi. per yanl. It has a very close pile, neoriy as 
■hart and Ana m volrst 



I 



PERSIAN SOLDIERS 111 

ime, and in some cases make it much of a pastime. 

[en being present they were very closely veiled, and 

innd great difficulty in holding on the ckadars and 

lOttiiig the wool at the same time. 
After taking tea in the pleasant upper room of the 

trpet-weaver's house, we visited the large barracks and 
rade ground. The appearance of the soldiers could 
p]y impress a stranger favourably. They looked 
nothing better than " dirty, slouching ragamuffins." slip- 
shod, in tattered and cast-off clothes of all sorts, ou the 
vei^e of actual mendicancy, bits of rusty uniform appearing 
here and there amongst their cotton rags. The quarters aiB 
not bad. Tlie rank and file get one and a half pounds of 
bread dailyand live rupees a month nominaUy,but their pay 
is in arrears, and they eke it out by working at different 
trades. These men had not been drilled for two months, 
and were slovenly and unaoldierly to a degree, as men 
must be who have no proper pay, rations, instruction, 
clothing, or equipments. 

The courtesy of the host leaves nothing unthought of 
In returning from a long stroll round the city a wet place 
had to be crossed, and when we reached it there were 
aaddle-horses ready. On arriving at dusk in the bazar 
several sen-ants met us with lanterns. The lantern is an 
important matter, as its size is supposed to indicate the 
position of the wearer. The Persian lantern has a tin or 
'iron top and bottom, between which is a collapsible 
wired cylinder of waxed muslin. The light from the 
candle burning inside is diffused and soft. Three feet 
long and two feet wide is not an uncommon size. They 
are carried close to the ground, illustrating " Thy Word 
is a lamp unto my path," and none but the poor stir 
ont after dark without a lantern-bearer in front. Our 
lanterns, as befits the VakiVs position, are very large. 
There is something Biblical in the progress of Abdul 





112 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lette 

liabim througli the streets, always reminding me of 
" greetings in the market-place," aud ■' doing alma to be 
seen of men,"— not tliat I tliink our kind host sins in either 
direction. " Peace be with you," say the people, bending 
low. " To you be peace," replies the Agha. 

A wish having been expressed to visit the rock-sculp- 
tures of the Takt-i-Bostau, a winter picnic was qnietly 
arranged for the purpose. There was a great snowstorm on 
the night we arrived, succeeded by intense frost and clear 
blue skies, — glorious Canadian winter weather. Outside 
the wall an English landau, brought in pieces from Bag- 
dad, awaited us, with four Arab horses, two of ihem 
ridden. There were eleven outriders and some led 
horses, and a Turki pipe - bearer rode alongside the 
carriage with two cylindera of leather containing kaliam 
in place of holsters, on one side, behind a leather water- 
bottle, and on the other a brazier of lighted charcoal 
hanging by chains much below the horse's body. Another 
pipe-bearer lighted the kalian at intervals and handed it 
into the carriage to liis master. Some of the liotsemen 
carried rifles and wore cartridge-belts. 

Reaching the Karasu river we got out into deep mud, 
were ferried over in a muddy box hauling on a i^ope, and 
drove to the Takt-i-Bostan, where several tanks of 
clear water, a house built into the rock, a number of 
Kurds on fine horses, the arched recesses in the rock 
which contain the sculptures, and the magnificent range 
of the Jabali-Besitun formed a very striking scena 

Sir H. Rawlinson considers these sculptures the finest 
in Persia, and regards them as the work of Greek artists 
The lower of the two bas-reliefs at the back of the main 
recess is a colossal figure of a king on horseback, " the staff 
of whose spear is as a weaver's beam." On the sides of the 
recess, and, like the equestrian figure, in very high relief 
and very mucli imdercut, are scenes from the chase of a 



LBTTBK V THE TAKT-1-BOSTAN 113 

most spirited description, representing a king and court 
mounted on elephants, horses, and camels, hunting boars, 
stags, and other aniuials, their enthusiasm in the pursuit 
being successfully conveyed by the ait of the sculptor. 
In the spandrels of the archway of the main recess are 
carved, winged female figures. In the smaller arch, also 
containing a has-rehef, is a Pehlovi inscription.^ 

There is a broad stone platform in front of the arch, 
below which flows chrect from the mountain a great 
volume of water, which replenishes the tanks. The house, 
which also contains a tank fed by the same living water, 
the mountain and its treasures, the tanks, and some miles 
of avenues of willows, have been bought by the Vakil, 
and his son laughingly says that he hopes to live to see a 
time when Cook will give " tourist excursion tickets " by 
rail to the Takt-i-Bostan ! 

CoH'ee and kalians were served to the Kurds in the 
arch, and mounting the hoiaes we rode to a country house 
belonging to our host in the midst of large rose gardens, 
and with a wonderful view of the magnificcut Eesitun 
range, of the rolhng snowy hills ou which lurmanshah 
and its plantations lay like a black splotch, and of this 
noble plain, six miles long from north to south, and thirty 
from east to west, its absolutely unbroken snow gleam- 
ing like satin, and shadows lying upon it in pure blue. 
Many servants and a lai^'e Are awaited us in that pleasant 
bungalow, as well as coffee and sweetmeats, and we stayed 
there tdl the sinking sun flushed all the surrounding hills 
with pink, and the gray twilight came ou. 

1 rode a splendid Arab, with a nepk " clothed with 



i 



For till! Ssauumi inBcriptioas, vido Burlij fkaanian IiacHptiimM, Lj E, 
tllonuLii. Tlia great work |>ubliahed by the Fi'ench GovunimDnt, Foi/ayr 
en Ptne, Paria, 1851, by Mesaieura Flaudiu et Coslfl, coiitaius elaborate 
BDil liiiely-axecDted repreBentatiDUa of theau rock auulptareti, whieh 
Huistly uf Lbe time of tlic later Sasaniau moDarulia. 




J 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

thundei," a horse to make one fe«I young again, with 
bia elastic stride and pride of bearing, but indeed I 
" snatched a fearful joy," for the snow was extremely 
slippery, and thirteen Arab horses in high conditiou 
restrained to a foot's pace had belligerent views of tieii 
own, tending to disconcert an unwary rider. We crossed 
the Karasu by a deep and devious ford up to the girths, 
and had an exhilarating six miles' ride by moonlight in 
keen frost, the powdery snow crackling under the horees' 
feet. It was too shppery to enter the town on horse- 
back, but servants with lanterns awaited us at the gates 
and roaring firea and dinner were ready here, after a 
delightful expedition. 

I dined alone with our host, Hadji, who understands and 
speaks English fairly well, acting as interpreter. Abdul 
Eiihini at once plunged into politics, and asked very many 
intelligent queatioua about English politics and parties, 
the condition and housing of our working classes, and 
then about my own family and occupations. He is a 
zealous Moslem, and the pious phrases which sit so oddly 
on Hadji come very naturally from his lips. In reply to 
a sketch of character which I gave him he said : " What 
God does is good. He knows, we submit. He of whom 
you speak laid up great treasure for another life. Whoso 
loves and befriends the poor is acceptable to God. One 
day we shall know all. God is good." He said he had 
been too busy to learn English, bat that he imdetstands 
a great deal, and added, with a roguish gleam lighting up 
his whole face, and a very funny laugh, " And I hear 
what M— - — says." He has seen but very few English 
ladies, and it shows great quickness of apprehension that 
he should never fail ia the respectfulness and quiet 
courteous attentions which would be shown to a lady by 
an English host 

Even after India, the quantity of servants eiuplnyed in 



A PERSIAN HOUSEHOLD 115 

pguch a household as this is very impressive. Besides 
I number who are with the Vakil in Tihran, there are 
ibe nozr or steward, who under the master is supreme, 
cooks and their aaaistaiits, table servauta, /arosAf*, who 
J sweepers and message-runners, in any number, pipe- 
;, coffee and ice-makers, plate- clean era, washermen, 
bunp-cleaners, who are also lantern -bearers, a head groom, 
ndth a groom for each horse under him, and a number 
over forty in all, receiving, if paid at the usual 
of wages in Kirmanshah, which is a cheap place, 
Irom sisty krana a month down to twenty, the kran being 
r about 8d. These wages do not represent the actual 
lins of a servant, for he is entitled to perquisites, which 
ce chiefly in the form of commissions on things bought 
1 sold by his master, and which are regarded as legiti- 
B if they do not exceed 10 per cent. It is of no use 
> fight again this " iiwdakd" or to vex one's soul in any 
way about it. Persians have to submit to it as well 
I Europeans. Hadji has endeavoured to extract from 
So to 80 per cent on purchases made by him for me, 
lat this is thought an outrage. 

This modakel applies to all bargains. If a ckarvadar 
[no longer a katirgi) is hired, he has to pay one's servant 
10 per cent on the contract price. If I sell a horse, mj 
servant holds out for a good price, and takes his 10 per 
Bent, and the same thing applies to a pair of shoes, or 
i pound of tea, or a chicken, or a bottle of milk. The 
^tem comes down from the highest quarters. The 
rice paid by the governor of a province to the Shah is 
but the Shah's vwdakd, and when a governor farms the 
taxes for 60,000 (uinans and sells them for 80.000, the 
difference is his modakel, and so it goes on through all 
■ official transactions and appointments, and is a fruitful 
e of grinding oppression, and of inefficiency in the 
my and other departments. The servant, poor fellow. 





116 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettebt 

may stop at 10 per cent, but the Shah's servant may 
think himself generous if he hesitates at 50 per cent 
I have heard it said that when the late Shah was dying 
he said to the present sovereign : " If you would sit long 
upon the throne, see that there is only one spoon among 
ten men/' and that the system represented by this speech 
is faithfully carried out I. L. B. 



LBTTEB VI 



PIOUS PHRASEOLOGY 



LETTER VI 

KlRMANfiHAir, Feb. t. 

IOn January 28 there was a tremendous snowfall, and 

ren before that the road to Hamadan, which was our 

ossible route, had been blocked for some days. The 

■temperature has now risen to 31°, with a bitter wind, 

land much enow in the sky. The journey does not 

■'promise well. Two of the servants have been ill. I am 

laot at all well, and the reports of the difticulties farther 

a are rather serious. These things are certain, — that the 

■marches are very long, and without any possibility of 

riesting en route owing to mud or snow, and that the food 

and accommodation will be horrible, 

Hadji is turning out very badly. He has fever now, 
poor fellow, and is even more useless than usual Abdul 
I Sahim does not like Mm to interpret, and calls him " the 
■-aavage." He does no work, and ia both dirty and dia- 
l-'lionest. The constant use of pious phrases is not a good 
Fngn either of Moslem or Christian. I told him this 
I morning that I could not eat from so dirty a plate. 
I* God is great," he quietly answered. He broke my 
I'trestle bed by not attending to directions, and when I 
I pointed out what he had done, he answered, " God knows 
IftU, God ordains all things." It is really exasperating. 
It is necessary to procure an additional outfit for 
lie journey — a slow process — masks lined with flannel, 
ibeepskin bags for the feet, the thick felt coatfl of the 




118 JOUENEYS IN PEKSIA lmtbb 

country for all the servants, additional blankets, k(^w«A$ 
for me, and saddle-horses. The marches will frequently 
be from twenty to thirty miles in length, and the fatigue 
of riding them at a foot's pace when one cannot excliange 
riding for walking will be so great that I have had a pair 
of liajaioehs made in which to travel when I am tired of 
the mule. These panniers are oblong wooden boxes, 
eighteen inches high, with hoops over them for curtaina. 
One bangs on each side of the mule on a level with bis 
back, and they are mounted, i.t. they are scrambled into 
from the front by a ladder, which is carried between 
them. Most women and some men travel in tbem. 
They are filled up with quilta and cushions. The mule 
which is to carry them is a big and powerful animal, and 
double price is charged for him. 

Horses are very good and cheap here. A pure Arab 
can be bought for £14, and a cross between an Arab and 
a Kurdish horse — a breed noted for endurance — for even 
less. But to our thinking they are small, never ex- 
ceeding fifteen hands. The horses of the Kirmansbah 
province are esteemed everywhere, and there is a steady 
drain upou them for the Indian market, The stud of 
three horses requires a groom, and Abdul Kahim is 
sending a smmr, who looks a character, to attend us to 
Tihran. A muleteer, remarkable in appearance and 
beauty, and twelve fine mules have been engaged. The 
sowar and several other men have applied to me for 
medicine, having fearful coughs, etc., but I have not been 
fortunate enough to cure them, as their maladies chieSy 
require good feeding, warm bedding, and poultices, which 
are unattainable. It is pitiable to see the poor shivering 
in their thin cotton clothes in such weather. The men 
make shift with the seamless felt coats— more cloaks than 
coats, with long bag-like sleeves tapering to the size of a 
glove but with a slit midway, through which the hands 



.■1 DEPAUTUBE FROM KIRMANSHAH 119 

can be protruded when need arises. The women have 
no outer garment hut the thin cotton cJimlur. 

I have tried to get a bed made, hut there is no wood 
strong enough for the purpose, and the bazars cannot 
pfToduce any canvas. 

Sannah, Feb. 5. — Yesterday we were to have started at 
nine, but the usual quarrelling about loads detained us till 
10.30, so that it was nearly dark when we reached the 
end of the first stage of a three weeks' journey. From 
the house roof the prospect was most dismal It was 
partly thawing, and through the whiteness of the plain ran 
a brown trail with sodden edges, indicating mud. Tlio 
great mass of the Jabali-Besitun, or Eehistun, or Behishtan, 
though on the other side of the plain, seemed actually im- 
pending over the city, with its great black rock masses, too 
Bteep to hold the snow, and the Besitun mountain itself, 
iaid to be twenty-four miles away, looming darkly througli 
gray snow clouds, looked hardly ten. Our host had sent 
nen on to see if the landau could take me part of the way 
,t least ; but their verdict wa.s that the road was impassable. 
After much noise the caravan got under way, but it 
,-waa soon evident that the fine mules we had engaged 
liad been changed for a poor, sore-backed set, and that 
the fine saddle-mule I was to have had was metamor- 
phosed into a poor weak creature, which began to drop 
his leg from the shoulder almost as soon as we were out- 
I side the walls, and on a steep bridge came down on his 
t.nose with a violent fall, giving me a sharp strain, and fell 
BjKveral times afterwards ; indeed, the poor animal could 
arcely keep on his legs during the eight hours' march. 
Hadji rode in a kajaioeh, balanced by some luggage, 
nd was to keep close to me, but when I wanted to 
change my broken-down beast for a pannier he was not 
to he seen, then or afterwards, and came in late. The 
big mule had fallen, he was bruised, the kajatoeha were 




120 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LcrraBTi 

smashed to pieces, aud were broken up for firewood, ind 
I am now without any means of getting any rest from 
riding! " It's tlie pace that kills." In snow and nrad 
gallops are impossible, and three miles an hour is good 
going. 

An hour from Kimianshah the road crosses tlie Earasa 
by a good brick bridge, and proceeds over the plain for 
many miles, keeping the Besitun range about two miles 
on tlie left, and then passes over undulating ground to the 
Besitun village. Two or three large villages occur at a 
distance from the road, now shut in, and about eight milet 
from Besitun there are marble columns lying on the 
ground among some remains of marble walls, now only 
himirnocks in the snow. 

The road was churned into deep mud by the passage 
of animals, and the snow was too deep to ride in. My 
mule lost no opportunity of tumbhug down, and I felt 
myself a barbarian for urging him on. Hills and moun- 
tains glistened in all directions. The only exception to 
the general whiteness was I'im, the great rock ma^ of 
Besitun, which ever loomed blackly overhead through 
clouds and darkness, and never seemed any nearer. It 
was verj- solitary. I met only a caravan of carpets, and 
a few men struggling along with laden asses. 

It was the moat artistic day of the whole journey, 
much cloud flying about, mountains in indigo gloom, or in 
gray, with storm clouds round their heads, or pure white, 
with shadows touched in with cobalt, wliile peaks and 
ridges, sun-kissed, gleamed here and there above indigo 
and gray. Not a tree or even bush, on them or on the 
plain, broke the monotony after a summer palace of the 
Shall, surrounded by poplars, was passed. There is 
f' of water everywhere. 

i the sun was stormily tingmg with pink the 
g anow-clouds here and ^ere, I halted on the brow 



I ARRIVAL AT BESITUN 121 

pe under the imposing rock front of Besitun to 
■ orders. It was wildly magnificent: the huge 
I precipice of Piru, rising 1700 feet from the level, the 
I mountains on both sides of the valley approaching each 
I other, and behind Piru a craggy ravine, glorified here 
land there by touches of amber and pink upon the clouds 
J which boiled furiously out of its depths. In the fore- 
Iground were a huge caravanserai with a noble portal, a 
I solitary thing upon the snow, not a dwelling, but offering 
tits frigid hospitality to all comers; a river with many 
, and the ruinous hovels of Besitnn huddled 
I in the mud behind. An appalling view in the wild twi- 
[ light of a winter evening ; and as the pink died out, a 
I desolate ghastliness fell upon it. As I waited, all but 
I worn out by the long march, the tumbling mule, and the 
I icy wind, I thought I should like never to hear the deep 
V chimes of a Persian caravan, or see the huge portal of 
' a Persian caravansenii any more. These are cowardly 
emotions which are dispelled by warmth and food, but at 
that moment there was not much prospect of either. 

Through seas of mud and by mounds of filth we 

iDtered Eesitun, a most wretched village of eighteen 

, chiefly ruinous, where we dismounted in the 

ixed snow and mud of a yard at a hovel of three 

} vacated by a family. It was a better shelter than 

1 have been hoped for, though after a fire was made, 

filled the room with smoke, I had to move from 

e to place to avoid the drip from the roof. 

i said he was ill of fever, and seemed like an 

, but the orderly said that the illness was shammed 

I the stupidity assumed in order not to work. I told 

1 to put the mattress on the bed ; " I'our water on the 

' he replied. I repeated, " Put — the — mattress 

—the- — bed." to which he replied, " Put the mattress 

i water ! " I said if he felt too ill for his work he 




182 



.I0URNEY8 IN PERSIA 



might go to bed. " God knows," he answered, " Ye>, 
knows that you are a lazy, good-for-nothing, hambi^ 

ging brute" — a well-timetl objurgation from M , 

which elicited a prolonged " Ya Allah \ " but produc«d no 
effect, as the tea and ckapatties were not relatively bat 
absolutely cold the next morning. 

The next day dawned miserably, and the dayligbt 
when it came was only a few removes from darkness, 
yet it was enough to bring out the horrors of that 
wretched place, and the dirt and poverty of the people, 
who were a prey to skin diseases. Many readers will 
remember that Sir H. Rawliuson considers that there are 
good geographical and etymological reasons for identify- 
ing Besitun with the B^histan, or Place of Ciardens of 
the Greeks, and with the famous pleasure-grounds which 
tradition ascribes to Semiramis. But of these gardens 
not a trace remains. A precipitous rock, smoothed at its 
lower part, a vigorous spring gushing out at the foot of 
the precipice, two tablets, one of which, at a height of 
over 300 feet, visible from the road but inaccessible, is 
an Achremenian sculpture portraying the majesty of 
Darius, with about a thousand lines of cuneiform writing, 
are all tliat survive of the ancient splendoure of Besitun, 
with tlie exception of some buttresses opposite the rock, 
belonging to a vanished Sasanian bridge over the Gamasiab, 
and some fragments of other buildings of the Sasanian 
epocli. These deeply interesting antiquities have been 
descrilied and illustrated by Sir H. Kawliuson, Flandin 
and Coste, and others. 

It has been a severe day. It was so unpromising that 
a start was only decided on after many pros and cons. 
Through dark air small flakes of snow fell sparsely at 
intervals from a sky from which all light had died out. 
Gusts of icy wind swept down every goi^e. Huge ragged 
ninasea of cloud drifted wildly round the frowning mass 



LETTER VI A "BLIZZARD" 123 

of Pirn. Now and tlien the gusts ceased, and there was 
an inauspicious calm. 

I rode a big mule not used to the bit, voiy trouble- 
some and mulish at first, but broken in an hour. A 
clear blink revealed the tablets, but from their great alti- 
tude the tallest of the figures only looked two feet high. 
There is little to see ou this march even under favour- 
able circumstancea A few villages, the ruined fort of 
Hassan Khan, now used as a caravanserai, on a height, 
the windings of the Gamaaiab, and a few canals crossed 
by brick bridges, represent its chief features. Impres- 
sions of a country received in a storm are likely to be 
incorrect, but they were pleasurable. Everything seemed 
on a grand scale : here desolate plateaus pure white, there 
high mountains and tremendous gorges, from which white 
mista were boiling up — everything was shrouded in 
mysteiy — plain prose ceased to be for some hours. 

The others had to make several halts, so I left the 
" light division " and rode on alone. It became dark and 
wild, and presently the surface of the snow began to 
move and to drift furiously for about a foot above the 
ground. The wind rose to a gale. I held my hat on 
with one half-frozen hand. My mackintosh cape blew 
inside out, and struck me such a heavy blow on the eyes 
that for some time I could not see and had to trust to 
the mule. The wind rose higher ; it was furious, and the 
drift, not only from the valley but from the mountain 
eides, was higher than my head, stinging and hissing as 
it raced by. It was a "blizzard," a brutal snow-laden 
north - easter, carrying fine, sharp, hard - frozen snow 
Grystala, which beat on my eyes and blinded them. 

After a short experience of it my mule " turned tail " 
snd needed spurring to make him face it. I fought on 
/or an hour, crossed what appeared to be a bridge, where 
there were a few mud hovels, and pressed on down a 




J 



124 JOURXEYS IN PERSU lctiervi 

narrower valley. The blizKard became frightful; &om 
every ravine gusts of storm came Jown, sweeping tiie 
powdery snow from the hillsides into the valley; the 
mountains were blotted out, the depression in the snow 
which erewhile had marked the path was gone, I could 
not even see the mule's neck, and he was foundering in 
deep snow up to the girths ; the liiss of the drift had in- 
creased to a roar, the violence of the storm produced 
breathlessness and the intense cold numbness. U was 
dangerous for a solitary traveller, and thinkiiig that 

M would be bothered by missing one of the party 

under such circumstances, I turned and waited under the 
lee of a ruinous mud hovel for a long, long time (ill the 
others came up — two of the men having been unhorsed in 
a drift. 

lu those hovels there were neither accommodation nor 
supplies, and we decided to push on. It was never so 
bad again. The wind moderated, wet snow fell heavily, j 
but cleared off, and there was a brilliant blue heaven 
with heavy sunlit cloud-wreaths, among which colossal 
mountaiu forms displayed theniselves, two peaks iu 
glorious sunlight, liigh, high above a whirling snow-cloud, 
which was itself far above a great mountain range below. 
There were rifts, valleys, gorges, naked, nearly perpen- 
dicular rocks, the faces of mountains, half of which had 
fallen down in the opposite direction, a snow-fiUed valley, 
a winding river witli brief blue stretches, a ruined fort 
ou an eminence, a sharp turn, a sudden twilight, and 
then another blizzard far colder than the last, raging 
down a lateral ravine, up which, even through the blind- 
ing drift, were to be seen, to all seeming higher tlinn 
mountains of this earth, the twin peaks of Shamran lighted 
by the sun. I faced the blizzard for some time, and then 
knowing that Iladji and the cook, who were behind me. 
would turn off to a distant village, all trace of a track 



LKTTKRVI A DIFFICULT TRACK 12n 

having disappeared, I rode fully a mile back and waited 
half an hour for them. They were half-frozen, and bad 
hardly been ahle to urge their mulea, which were lightly 
ladeu, through the snow, and Hadji was groaning " Va 
Allah ! " 

The blizzard was over and the sky almost cloudless, 
but the mercury had fallen to 18°, and a. keen wind was 
still blowing the powdery snow to the height of a foot. 
I sent the two men on in front, and by dint of calling to 
them constantly, kept them from getting into drifts of 
uiiknown depth. We rode up a rising plateau for two 
hours — a plateau of deep, glittering, blinding, trackless 
snow, giving back the sunshine in millions of diamond 
flashings. Through all this region thistles gro* to a 
height of four feet, and the only way of finding the track 
was to look out for a space on which no withered thistle- 
blooms appeared above the snow. 

This village of Sannah hes at an altitude of about 5500 

»feet, among poplar plantations and beautiful gardens, in 
which fine walnut trees are conspicuous. Though partly 
' Toinous it is a fiourishing Uttle place, its lands being 
abundantly watered by streams which run into the 
Gamasiab. It is buried now in snow, and the only mode 
of teaching it is up the bed of a broad sparkling stream 
among the gardens. The sowar met us here, the navi- 
gation being ditlicult, and the " light division " having 
come up, we were taken to the best house in the village, 
where the family have vacated two rooms, below the 
level of a yard full of snow. The plateau and its ad- 
jacent mountains were flushed ivitb rose as we entered 
Sannah, and as soon as the change to the pallor of death 
came on the mercury raced down to zero outside, and it 
is only 6" in the room in which I am writing. 

t There is a large caravanserai at the entrance to ii>annah, 
1 I suspect that the smi-ar in choosing private quarters 



IM 



JOCBXErS IX PEBSU 



1 the hftiwrfii (headman) and throws the Tillage 
nto coBfoBOtt. toRii]^ the vxHuen and children oQt of 
Ifee noBB^ the owneis, though they get a handsome smn 
for tt« iBcoiBiiiodation, having to gire him an eqnallj 

AJUa a t ily aine twuis of a crawling pace and ei- 
f o ww to Tialmt VMtber, I suffered &om intense pain 
ID B^ jamta, and ««s dr^ged and liited in and put into 
■ dait I vote ** put," for I was Dearly helpless, and had 
to take a tea^iooofnl of whisky in warm milk While the 
file was beii^ taade two women, with a gentle kindliness 
iriiieb WHO my beait, chafed my trembling, nearly frozm 
hands with their own, with kindly, womanly looks, 
which'sapplied the place of speech. 

I lay down under a heap of good blankets, sorry to 
see them in thin cotton clothes, and when I was les 
froien observed my room and its grotesquely miserable 
aspect, " the Savage " never taking any trouble to arrange 
it. Ther? are no windows, and the divided door does 
not shut by three inches. A low hole leads into 
the granary, which is also the fowl-house, but the fowls 
have no idea of keeping to their own apartment. Two 
sheep with injured legs lie in a comer with some foddet 
beside them. A heap of faggots, the bed placed diagon- 
ally to avoid the firehole in the floor, a splashed tarpaulin 
on which Hadji threw down the saddle and bridle plastered 
with mud, and all my travelling gear, a puddle of frozen 
water, a plough, and some ox yokes, an occasional gust of 
ashes covering everything, and clouds of smoke from 
wood which refuses to do anything but smoke, are 
the luxuries of the halt. The house is full of people, 
and the women come in and out without scruple, and I 
am really glad to see them, though it is difficult to rouse 
Hadji from his opium pipe and coffee, and his comfortable 
lounge by a good fire, to interpret for them. 



THE "DEMON WIND" 



The day's experiences remind nie of the lines — 



" Bare all lie could endtiM, 
And bore not always well." 



L „.._ 

Hirith excitements and diiEculties to the monotony of 
V splashing through mud in warm rain. 
I HamUahad, Feb. 7. — ITie next raomiug opened cloud- 
■ leas, with the mercury at 18°, which was hardly an excuse 
for tea and cfuxpatties being quite cold. I was ready much 
too early, and the servants having given out that I am 
a Hakim, my room was crowded with women and chil- 
dren, all suffering from eye diseases and scrofula, five 
women not nearly in middle life with cataract advanced 
in both eyes, aud many with incurved eyelids, the 
result of wood smoke. It was most painful to see their 
disappointment when I told them that it would need 
time to ctue some of them, and that for others I could 
do nothing. Could I not stay ? they pleaded. I could 
have that room and milk and eggs — the best they had. 
" And they lifted up their voices aud wept." I felt like 
I brute for leaving them. The people there showed much 
[ interest in our movements, crowding on the roofs to see 
Bjiur gear, and the start. 

The order of march now is — light division, three 

[Dules with an orderly, Hadji, and tlie cook upon them, 

e two last carrying what is absolutely necessary for the 

ight in case the heavy division cannot get on. M 

nd an orderly, the sowar, Abbas Khan, another who is 
* changed daily, the light division and I, sometimes start 
together; but as the pthers are detained by work on the 
road, I usually ride on ahead with the two servants. 

To write that we all survived the march of that day 
is strange, when the game pitiless blast or " demon wind," 
blowing from " the roof of the world " — tlie Pamir desert. 



wade corpses of five men who started with a carav*** 
ahead of us that luoniiiij;. We had to cliub a hai^ 
aaceiidiiig plateau for 1500 feet, to surmount a jiaai*- 
The snow was at times three feut deep, and the tmck^* 
even of a heavy camvau which crossed before m wer^^ 
eH'aced by the drift iu a few minutes. 

A sun nntbout heat glared and scintillut«d like ar^^ 
electric light, white and unsympathetic, out uf a pililtn^* 
sky without a cloud. As soon as wc emerged from Sannal^ 
the " demon wind " seized on us — a steady, bligfatingi^ 
searching, merciless blast, no rise or fall, no lull, no hope^ 
Steadily and strongly it swept, at a temperature of 9", 
across the glittering ascent— swept mountain-sides bare; 
enveloped us at times iu glittering swirls of powdery snow, 
which after biting and stinging careered over the slopes 
iu twisted columns ; screeched down gorges and whistled 
like the demon it was, as it drifted the light frozen snow 
in layers, in ripples, in waves, a cruel, benumbing, blinding, 
withering invisibility ! 

Tlie six wooUeu layers of my mask, my three pairs of 
gloves, my sheepskin coat, fur cloak, and mackintosh piled 
on over a swaddling mass of woollen clothing, were as 
nothing before that awful blast. It was not a question 
of comfort or discomfort, or of suffering more or less 
severe, but of life or death, as the corpses a few miles 
ahead of us show. I am certain that if it had lasted 
another half-hour I too should have perished. The torture 
of my limbs down to my feet, of my temples and cheek- 
bones, the anguish and usclessness of my hands, from 
which the reins had dropped, were of small consequence 
compared with a chill which crept round my heut, 
threatening a cessation of work. 

There were groans behind me ; the cook and Hadji bad 
rolled off into the snow, where Hadji was calling on Him 
" who is not far from every one of us." M was on 



B the 

kpesi 



¥ 



HADJI'S MISFORTUNES 129 

foot Ilia mask was frozen hard. He w&s using a 
scientific instrument, and told hia orderly, an Afghan, a 
smart little " diiffadar " of a crack Indian corps, to fasten 
a strap. The man replied sadly, " I can't, Saliib." His 
arms and hands were useless. My mask was h'ozen to 
my lipa. The tears extorted from my eyes were frozen, 
I was so helpless, and in such tortnre, that I would gladly 
have lain down to die in the snow. The mercury fell 

After fighting the elements for three hours and a half, 
ire crossed the crest of the pass at an altitude of 7000 

it, to look down upon a snow world stretclied out every- 
where, pure, glistering, awful ; mountains rolling in snowy 
ranges, valleys without a trace of man, a world of horror, 
glittering under a mocking sun. 

Hadji, with many pious ejaculations, gasped out that 
he was dying (in fact, for some time all speech had 
been reduced to a gasp) ; but when we got over the crest 
there was no more wind, and all the benumbed limbs 

lumed sensation, through an experience of anguish. 
The road to Kangawar lies through a broad valley, 
which has many streams. Among the mountains which 
encompass it are the Kuh-i-Hassan, Boka, the Kuh-i-Paran, 
and the Kuh-i-Eozah. I rode on with the»/wo servants, 
indulging in no higher thoughts than of the comfort I 
should have in lying down, when just in front of me 
Hadji turned a somersault, my alpenstock flying in one 
direction and the medicine chest in another, whUe he lay 
[motionless, flat on his back with all his limbs stretched 
'Out, just as soldiers who have been shot he in pictures. 
In getting to him my mule weut down in a snow-drift, 
out of which I extricated him with difficulty. I induced 
Hadji, who said his back was broken, and was gixjaning 
aad calling on Allah, to get up, and went on to secure his 
lule, which had the great pack-saddle under its body, 
VOL.1 K 



130 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter v[ 

anil was kicking with all its might at my betl and " hold- 
all," which were between its hind legs, and succeeded in 
catching and holding it till Hadji came up. I told biu 
to unfasten the surcingle, for the animal was wild with 
the things among its legs, and he ^vrung his hands and 
beat his breast, exclaiming, " God is great ! God knows I 
shall never see Bushire again ! " and was quite helpte- 
Seeing a caravan of asses approaching, I rode on as fasl 
as I could to the well-situated little town of Eangavar, 
expecting him to follow shortly. At present the entrance 
into Kangawar is up the bed of a stream. 

We had been promised good accommodation there, 
and the town could evidently afford it, but Abbas KhaD 
had chosen something very wretched, though it was up- 
stairs, and liad an extensive snow view. Crumhling, 
difficult stairs at each end of a crumbling mud house led 
to rooms which Imrely afforded a shelter, with a ruinous 
barn between, where the sen-ants, regardless of conse- 
quences, kept up a bonfire. A man shovelled most of 
the snow out of my room, and tried to make a fire but 
failed, as neither he nor I could stand the smoke produced 
by the attempt. This imi>erfect shelter had a window- 
frame, with three out of its four wooden panes gone, and 
a cracked door, which could only ensure partial privacy 
by being laid against the posts from the out«r landing, 
which was a flat roof. The wall was full of cracks b^ 
enough for a finger, through which the night wind rioted' 
in a temperature 5" below zero. 

There was nothing to sit upon, and I walked up and) 
down for two hours, half-frozen, watching the straggling 
line of the caravan as it crawled along the valley, till the 
sunset flush changed into the chill blue-gray of twilight 
Hadji arrived with it, having broken his girth after I left 
liim. There was not much comfort after the seTem 
march, owing to the draughts and the smoke, but one is 



KANGAWAR 131 

always hungry and sleepy, and the hybernation of the 
insects makes up for any minor discomforts. It was 
so cold that some water in a cup froze before I could 
drink it, and the blanket over my face was hard frozen. 

Kangawar was full of mourning. The bodies of two 
men and a hoy, who had perished on the plain while we 
were struggling up the pass, had been brought in. This 
boy of tw^ve was " the only son of his mother and she 
was a widow." He had started from Kangawar in the 
morning with five asses laden with chopped straw to sell 
for her, and had miserably perished. The two men were 
married, and had left families. 

Kangawar is a town of a thousand people built below 
a high hill, on some natural and artificial mounds. Some 
traditions regarding Semiramis are localised there, and it 
is supposed to be on the site of Pancobar, where she 
erected a temple to Anaitis or Artemis. Ruins of a 
fortress, now snow-buried, occupy the creat of a hill above 
the town, and there are other ruins, regarded by 
antiquaries as Grecian, representing a temple or palace, 
"a vast building constructed of enormous blocks of 
dressed stone." Of these remains I saw nothing but 
some columns and a pilaster, which are built into the 
miserable mud walls of a house near the bazar. 

ight the muleteers were beseeching ou their 

I knees. They said that they could not go on, that the 
caravan which had attempted to leave Kangawar in the 
morning had put back with three corpses, aud that they 

f and their mules would perish. In the morning it was 
for some time doubtful whether they could be induced or 

I bribed to proceed. The day was fine and still, but they 

L said that the snow was not brokea At last they 
> start if we would promise to return at the first 
F wind! 
Every resource against cold was brought out and 



■ agreed i 

; breath I 

md put J 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



on. One eye wa3 all that was visible of the servants' 
facea. The cliarvadars relied on their felt coats and raw 
sheepskins, with the fur inside, roped round their legs. 
There is danger of froat-bite even with all precautions. 
In addition to double woollen underclothing I put on a 
pair of thick Chitral socks over two pairs of wooUen 
stockings, and over theae a pair of long, loose Afghan 
boots, made of sheepskin with the fur inside. Over my 
riding dress, which is of flannel lined with heavy homespun. 
I had a long homespun jacket, an Afghan sheepskin coat, a 
heavy fur cloak over my knees, and a stout " regulation " 
waterproof to keep out the wind. Add to this a cork 
helmet, a fisherman's hood, a " six-ply " mask, two pairs of 
woollen gloves with mittens and double gauntlets, and 
the difficulty of mounting and dismounting for a person 
thiis svmddled may be im^ined ! The Persians are all in 
cotton clothes. 

However, though they have no "firesides." and no 
cheerful crackle and blaze of wood, they have an ar- 
rangement by which they can keep themselves warm 
for hours by the expenditure of a few handfuls of animal 
fuel The fire hole or tdndur in the middle of the 
floor is an institution. It is circular, narrows some- 
what at the top and bottom, has a flue leading to the 
bottom from the outside, and is about three feet deep 
and two in diameter. It ia smoothly lined with clay 
inside. 

Over this is the karsi or platform, a skeleton wooden 
frame like an inverted table, from two to five feet square, 
covered with blankets or a thickly- wadded cotton quilt, 
which extends four or five feet beyond it. Cushions are 
placed under this, and the women liuddle under it all 
day, and the whole family at night, and in this weather 
all day— the firepot in the hole giving them comfortable 
warmth both for sleeping and waking. They very rarely 



THE FATE OF A CAEATAN 

Wash, and the karsi is so favourahle for the develop- 
ment of verniin that I always hurry it out of the room 
when I enter. So excellent and economical is the 
eontrivance, that a tdjid&r in which the fire has not 
been replenished for eighteen hours has still a genial 



It was a serious start, so terribly slippery in the 
heajred-up alleys and uncovered bazars of Kangawar 
that several of the raulea and men fell. Outside the 
bown was a level expanse of deep, wrinkled, drifted, 
wavy, scintillating snow, unbroken except for a rut about 
, foot wide, a deep long " mule ladder," produced by 
heavily - laden mules and asses each stepping in its 
ippedecessor's footsteps, forming short, deep corrugations, 
an which it is painful and tedious for horses or lightly- 
laden animals to walk. For nine hours we marched 
tiirough this corrugated rut- 
Leaving on the left the summer route to Tihran 
d Hamadan, which is said to have been blocked 
for twenty days, we embarked upon a glittering plain 
(Bovered with pure snow, varying in depth from two feet 
I the level to ten aud fifteen in the drifts, crossed by 
narrow and only shghtly beaten track. 
Ere long we came on solemn traces of the struggle and 
defeat of the day before : every now and then a load of 
chopped straw thrown away, then the deep snow much 
trampled, then the snow dug away and piled round a 
all space, in which the cJtarvadars had tried to shelter 
iliemselves from the wind as the shadows of death fell, 
ihflo more straw, and a grave under a high mound of 
mow ; farther on some men busy burying one of the 
The air was still, and the sun shone as it had 
tone the day before on baffled struggles, exhaustion, and 
loeath. The trampling of the snow near the track 
■ marked the place where the caravau had turned, taking 



J 



134 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LETMin 

three out of the five bodies back to Kanga'war. The 
fury with which the wind had swept over the plain was 
sliowQ by the absolute level to which it had reduced tie 
snow, the deep watercourses being filled up with tka 
drifts. 

After crossing a brick bridge, and passing the needy 
buried village of Hussenabad, we rode hour after hour 
along a rolling track among featureless hills, till in the 
last twilight we reached the village of Pharipah, a low- 
lyiog place ( " low-lying " must never be uuderstood to 
mean anything lower than 5000 feet) among some 
frozen irrigated lauds and watered gardens. I arrived 
nearly dead from cold, fatigue, and the severe pains in 
the joints which are produced by riding nine hours at a. 
foot's pace in a temperature of 20°. My mule could only 
be urged ou by spurring, and all the men and aninmla 
were iu a state of great fatigue. My room was veny 
cold, as much of one side was open to the air, and a fire 
was an impossibility. 

Except for the crossing of a pass with an altitude of 
7500 feet, the next day's route was monotonous, acrras 
plains, among mountains, all pure white, the only in- 
cidents being that my chair was broken by the fall of a 
mule, and that my mule and I went over our heads in a 
snow-drift. The track was very little broken, and I was 
four hours in doing ten miles. 

Hamilabad is a village of about sixty mud hovels, and 
in common with all these mountain hamlets has sloping 
covered ways leading to pens under the house, where 
cattle, slieep, and goats spend much of the winter in 
darkness and warmth. 

I have a house, i.c. a mud room, to myself. These 
two days I have had rather a severe chill, after getting 
in, including a shivering lasting about two bouts, 
perhaps owing to the severe fatigue; and I was lying 




ABBAS KHAN 

I dovrn with the blankets over my face and was just 
tetting warm wlieti I heard much buzzing about me, 
isd looking up saw the room thronged with men, women, 
md childrea, just such a crowd as constantly besieged 
Lord when the toilsome day full of "the 
iDtradictiou of sinners against Himself" was done, 
Mt of them ill of " divers diseases and tonnents," 
llpox, rheumatism, ulcera on the cornea, abortive and 
iiorteued limbs, decay of the bones of the nose, palate, 
md cheek, tumours, cancers, skin maladies, ophthalmia, 
Fopaque films over the eyes, wounds, and many ailments 
too obscure for my elementary knowledge. Nothing is 
more painful than to be obliged to say that one cannot 
do anything for them. 

I had to get up, and for nearly two hours was hear- 
ing their tales of suffering, interpreted by Hadji with 
brutal frankness ; and they crowded my room again this 
morning. All 1 could do was to make various ointments, 
taking tallow as the basis, drop lotion into some eyes, 
give a few simple medicines, and send the majority sadly 
away. The sowar, Abbas Khan, is responsible for spread- 
ing my fame as a Sahlm. He is being cured of a severe 
cough, and comes to my room for medicine (in which I 
have no faith) every evening, a lean man with a lean 
face, lighted with a rapacious astuteness, with a kaftan 
streaming from his brow, except where it is roped 
L round his shaven skull, a zouave jacket, a skirt something 
I like a kilt, but which stands out like a ballet dancer's 
r dress, all sorts of WTappings round Ids legs, a coarse 
striped red sliirt, a double cartridge-belt, and a perfect 
armoury in his girdle of pistols and knives. He is a wit 
and a rogue. Dc^a, deprived of their usual shelter, shook 
my loose door at intervals all night This morning is 
gray, and looks like change. 

Nanej, Feb. 9. — It was thawing, and the march 




ch here J 



138 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lutkbti 

wfts very soft and splashy. The people are barbarous in 
their looks, speech, manners, and ways of living, and h*ve 
a total disregard of cleanliness of person, clothing, and 
dwellings. Whether they are actually too poor to have 
anything warmer than cotton clothing, or whether they 
have buried hoards I do not know ; but even in tiii 
severe weather tbe women of this region have nothing on 
their feet, and their short blue cotton trousers, short, loose, 
open jackets, short open chemises, and the thin blue sheet 
or diadar over their heads, are a mere apology for clothino. 

The jouniey yesterday wag through rolling hills, en- 
closing level plains much cultivated, with villages upon 
them mostly at a considerable distance from the road. I 
passed through two, one larger and less decayed than 
usual, but fearfully filthy, and bisected by a foul stream, 
from which people were drinking aud drawing water. 
Xear this is a loi'ty mound, a truncated cone, with some 
" Cyclopean" masonry on its summit, the relics of a fire 
temple of the Magi. Another pooi'cr ami yet filthier 
village was passed through, where a man was being 
buried ; and as I left Harailabad in the morning, a long 
procession was escorting a corpse to its icy grave, laid on 
its bedding on a bier, both these deaths being from small- 
pox, which, though very prevalent, is not usually fatal, 
and seldom attacks adults. Indeed, it is regarded as a 
childish malady, and is cured by a diet of melons and by 
profuse perspirations. 

A higher temperature had turned the path to slush, 
and made the crossing of the last plain very tedious. 
This is Bji abominable village, and the thaw is revealing 
a state of matters wiiich the snow would have concealed ; 
but it has been a severe week's journey, and I am glad 
of Sunday's rest even here. It is a disheartening place. 
I dismounted in one yard, in slush up to my knees, 
and from this splashed into another, round which axe 



LEmtEVi FEMALE SYMPATHY 137 

stables, cowsheds, and rooms which were vacated by the 
ketchuda and his family, but only partially, as the women 
npt only left all their "tilings" iu my room, but had a 
goiiovm or storehouse through it, to which they resorted 
continually. I felt ill yesterday, and put on a hhster, 
TFhich rendered complete rest desirable ; but it is not to 
be got. The room filled with women as soon as I settled 
myself in it. 

They told me at once that I could not liave a fire 
unless I had it under the karsi, that the smoke would 
be unbearable. When I asked them to leave me to rest, 
they said, " There's no shame in having women in the 

house." SI came an hour later and cleared the room, 

but as soon as he went away it filled again, and with 
men as well as women, and others unscrupulously tore 
out the paper panes from the windows. This afternoon 
I stayed in bed feeling rather ill, and about three o'clock 
a number of women in blue sheets, with a very definite 
leader, came in, arranged the karsi, filling the room with 
I smoke, as a preliminary, gathered themselves under the 
I qailt, and sat there talking loudly to each other. I felt 
myself the object of a focused stare, aud covered my 
head with a blanket in despair. Then more women 
came in with tea-trays, and they all took t€a and sat for 
another hour or two talking and tittering, Hadji assur- 
ing me that they were doing it out of kindness, because 
I was not well, and they thought it dull for me alone I 
The room was again cleared, and I got up at dark, and 
V liearing a great deal of whispering and giggling, saw that 
I'tfaey had opened the door windows, and that a crowd 
i outside. When I woke this morning a man was 
-examining my clothes, which were hanging up. They 
B-feel and pull my hair, fiuger all my things, and have 
token all the fine teetli out of ray comb. They have 
B curiosity without the gracefulness of the J 



i 



138 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LtriEn n 

This is a liouse of the better sort, tliough tlie walls 
are not plastered. A carpet loom is fixed into ibe floor 
with a half-woveu carpet upou it. Some handsome rugs 
are kid down. There are two much-decorated marriagL- 
cheats, some guns aiid swords, a quantity of glass tea- 
cups and ornaments in the recesses, and coloured wood- 
cuts of the Russian Imperial family, here, as in almost 
every house, are on the walls. 

There is great rejoicing to-night " for joy that a uaa 
is born into the world," the first-born of the kftchuda's 
^eldest son. In their exti'erae felicity they took me to see 
the mother and babe. The room was very hot, and 
crowded with relations and friends. The young motha 
was sitting up on her bed on the floor and the infant lay 
beside her dressed in swaddling clothes. She looked 
very happy and the young father very proud, I added 
a small oftering to the many which were brought in for 
luck, and it was not rejected. 

A sword was brought from my room, and with it the 
mamadii tiaced a line upon the four walls, repeating a 
formula which I underatood to he, " I am making this 
tower for Miriam and her child," * 1 was warned by 
Hadji not to look on the child or to admire him without 
saying " Mashallah," lest 1 should bring on him the woe 
of the evil eye. So greatly is it feared, that precautions 
are invariably taken against it from the hour of birth, 
by bestowing amulets and charms upon the child. A 
paragraph of the Koran, placed in a silk bag, had already 
been tied round the infant's neck. Later, he will wear 
another hag round his arm, and turquoise or blue beads 
will be sewn upon his cap. 

If a visitor admires a child without uttering the word 
Mashallah, and the child afterwards falls sick, the visitor 

' Thii custom, suppasetl to be an allusion to our Lord and Hi» motlicr. 
il decctibed by Morier in his Seeond Joarjuy in Pcrtia. 



A NAME- DAT CEREMONY 133 

at once 13 regarded as answerable for the calamity, and 
the relations take a shred oE his garment, and burn it in 
a brazier with cress seed, walking round and round the 
child OS it bums, 

Persian mothers are regarded as convalescent on the 
Ihird day, when they go to the Itammani to perform the 
eremonies required by Moslem law. A boy is weaned 
t the end of twenty-sis months and a girl at the end 
i twenty-four. If possible, on the weaning day the child 
t carried to the mosqne, and certain devotions are 
rformed. The weaning feast is an important function, 
md the relations and friends assemble, bringing presents, 
tad the child in spite of his reluctance ia forced to 
ike of the food. 
At the earliest possible period the mamach^ pronounces 
1 the infant's ear the Shiah profession of faith : '■ God is 
Bod, there is but one God, and Mohammed is the Prophet 
of God, and Ali ia the Lieutenant of God." A child 
becomes a Moslem as soon as this KeUmah Islam has 
been spoken into his ear; but a ceremony attends the 
bestow Ell of his name, which resembles that in use 
among the Buddhists of Tibet on similar occasions. 

Unless the father be very poor indeed, he makes a 
feast for his friends on an auspicious day, and invites the 
village mollaks. Sweatraeats are solemnly eaten after the 
guests have assembled. Then the infant, stiffened and 
mummied in its swaddling clothes, is brought in, and is 
laid on the floor by one of the mollaks, Five names are 
mrritten on five slips of paper, which are placed between 
the leaves of the Koran, or under the edge of the carpet. 
I !rhe first chapter of the Koran is then read. One of the 
I atips is then drawn at random, and a motlah takes up the 
l-child, and pronounces in its ear the name found upon it, 
I after which he places the paper on its clothes. 

The relations and friends give it presents according to 




A 



no JOURXEYS IN PERSIA LEWUin 

their means, answering to our christening gifts, and 
thereafter it is called by the name it has received 
Among men's names tliere is a preponderance of those 
taken from the Old Testament, among which Ibrahim, 
Ismail, Suleiman, Yusuf, and Moussa are prominenL 
Abdullah, Mahmoud, Hassan, Eaouf, Baba Honssein, Imam 
are also common, and man}' names Lave the suffix of Ali 
among the Shiahs. Fatmeh is a woman's name, but girl- 
children usually receive the name of some flower or bird, 
or fascinating quality of disposition or person. 

The journey is beginning to tell on men and ammals. 
One of the Arab horses has bad a violent attack of pain 
from the cold, and several of the menareailing anddepressei 

Dizahad, FA. 11. — Nauej is the last village laid down 
on any map on the route we are taking for over a hnndwl 
miles, if. until we reach Kum, though it is a caravan 
route, and it does not appear that any Europeans have pub- 
lished any accoimt of it. Just now it is a buried coraitry, 
for the snow is lying from one to four feet deep. It is 
not even possible to pronounce any verdict on the roads, 
for they are simply deep ruta in the snow, with ' mule 
ladders." The people say that the plains are irrigated 
and productive, and that the hills pasture their sheep and 
cattle ; and they all complain of the exactions of local 
officials. There is no variety in costume, and very little 
in dwellings, except as to size, for they are all built of 
mud or sun-dried bricks, within cattle yards, and have 
subterranean pens for cattle and goats. The people aboimd 
in diseases, specially of the eyea and bones. 

The salient features of the hills, if they have any, an 
rounded off by snow, and though many of them rise to 
a great height, none are really impressive hut Mount 
El wand, close to Hamadan. The route is altogether 
hilly, but the track pursues valleys and low psfses as 
much as possible, and is never really steep. 



CROSSING A WATER-PARTING 141 

Yesterday we marcLed twenty-four miles in eight 
, without any incident, and the " heavy division " 
)ok thirteen hours, and did not come in till ten at night ! 
"here are round hills, agglomerated into ranges, with easy 
, the highest 7026 feet in altitude, higher summits 
Jiere and there in view, the hills encircling level plains, 
^rinkled sparsely with villages at a distance from the 
I, denoted by scrubby poplars and willows ; sometimes 
i kaiuiat or underground irrigation channel with a 
Qine of pits or shafts, but whatever there was, or was not, it 
was always lonely, grim, and desolate. The strong winds 
lave blown some of the hillsides bare, and they appear 
1 all their defoi-mity of shapeless mounds of black gravel, 
or black mud, with relics of last year's thistles and 
euphorbias upon them. So great is the destitution of 
fuel that even now people are out cutting the stalks of 
Siistles which appear above the snow. 

As the hours went by, I did rather wish tor the 
I kajawehs, especially when we met the ladies of 
B governor's haram, to the number of thirty, reclining 
Dugly in pairs, among blankets and cushions, in panniers 
irith tilts, and curtains of a thick material, dyed Turkey 
The cold became veiy severe towards evening. 
The geographical interest of the day was that we 
prossed the watershed of the region, and have left behind 
&e streams which eventually reach the sea, all future 
rivers, however great their volume, or impetuous their 
■flow, disappearing at last in what the Americans call 
* Binks," but which are known in Persia as kavirs, usually 
t swamjjs. Near sunset we crossed a bridge of seven 
pointed arches with abutments against a rapid stream, 
md passing a great gaunt caravanserai on an eminence, 
md a valley to the east of the bridge with a few villages 
gliving an impression of fertility, hemmed in by some 
^apely mountains, we embarked on a level plain, 



bounded on all sides by hilla so snowy that not a brown 
patcli or outbreak of rock spotted tbeir whiteness, and 
with villages and caravanserais scattered thinly orer 
it. On the left, there are the extensive nuns of old 
Dizabad, and a great tract of forlorn graves closlenng 
round a crumbling imamzada. 

As the sun sank the distant hills became rose-flushed, 
and then one by one the flush died off iuto the palen^ 
of death, and in the gathering blne-grayuess, in desola- 
tion without sublimity, in ghastlineas, impressive but only 
by force of ghasthness, and in benumbing cold, we rode 
into tbia village, and into a yard encumbered with mighty 
piles of snow, on one side of which I have a wretched 
room, tliough the best, with two doors, which do not shut, hut 
when they are closed make it quite dark — a deep, damp, cob- 
webby, dusty, musty lair like a miserable eastern cowshed 

I was really half- frozen and quite benumbed, and 
though I had plenty of blankets and furs, had a long and 

severe chill, and another to-day. M also 1ms had 

bad chOls, and the Afghan orderly is ill, and moaning 
with pain in the next room. Hadji has fallen into a sbite 
of chronic invalidism, and is shakiug with chille, his teeth 
chattering, and he is calling on AEah whenever I on 
within hearing. 

The chilly dampness and the rise in tempentiffl 
again may have something to do with the ailments, W 
I think that we Europeans are suffering from the want of 
nourishing food. Meat has not been attainable for some 
days, the fowls are dry and skinny, and milk is very '' 
scarce and poor. I cannot eat the sour wafers whict* 
pass for bread, and as Hadji cannot boil rice or mak^ 
flour porridge, I often start in the morning having onl^^ 
had a cup of tea. I lunch in the saddle on dates, th^ 
milk in the holsters having been frozen lately ; then is th^ 
time for finding the value of a double peppermint lozenge^ 



LETTER Ti CREAKING A TRACK 143 

Snow fell heavily last niglit, and as the track has 
not been broken, amil the rharvadars dared not face it, 
we are detained in this miserable place, four other 
caravans sharing our fate. The proa and cons about 
atartiDg were many, and Abbas Khan was sent on horse- 
back to reconnoitre, but he came back like Noah's dove, 
reporting that it was a trackless waste of snow outside. 
It ia a (lay of rest, but as the door has to be open on 
the anow to let in light, my hands are benumbed with 
the damp cold. Still, a bowl of Edwards' desiccated soup — 
the best of all travelling soups — has been very reviving, 
and though I have had a severe chill again, I do not mean 
to succiimb. I do not dwell on the hardships, but they 
are awful. The soldiers and servants all have bad 
coughs, and dwindle daily. The little onlerly is so ill 
to-day that we could not have gone on even had the track 
been broken. 

Saruk, Feb. 13. — Unladen asses, followed by unladen 
mnles, were driven along to break the track this morning, 
and as two caravans started before us, it was tolerable, 
though very deep. Tlie solitude and desolation were 
swfuL At first the snow was somewhat thawed, but 
soon it became immensely deep, and we had to plunge 
through hollows from which the beasts extricated them- 
selves with great difficulty and occasionally had to be 
unloaded and reloaded. 

As I mentioned in writing of an earlier march, it ia. 
difficult and even dangerous to pass caravans when the 
only road is a deep rut a foot wide, and we had most 
tedious experience of it to-day, when some of our men, 

I weakened by illness, were not so patient aa usual. 
Abbas Klian and the orderly could hardly ait on their 
horses, and Hadji rolled off his mule at intervals, Aa 
the ckarvatlars who , give way have their beasts flounder- 
ing in the deep snow and losing their loads, both 



I 

I 



144 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LKimn 

attempt to keep the road, the result of which ia a Tiolent 
coIUsion. The two animals which " collide " usuiJly go 
down, and aome of the others come on the top of tiiem, 
and to-day at one time there were eight, struggling beds 
uppermost in the deep snow, all to be reloaded. 

This led to a serious m/Ue. The rival chanador, 
aggravated by Hadji, struck him on the head, and down he 
went into the aiiow, with his mule apparently on the top 
of him, and his load at aome distance. The same charvadar 
seized the halters of several of our mules, and drove 
them into the snow, where they all came to grief. Ooi 
chareadar, whose blue eyes, auburn hair and beard, 
and exceeding beauty, always bring to mind a sacred 
picture, became furious at this, and there was s 

fierce fight among the men (M- being ahead) and 

much bad language, such epithets as " sou of a dog " and 
" sons of burnt fathers " being freely bandied about 
The fray at last died out, leaving as its result only tie 
loss of an hour, aome broken surcingles, and some bleed- 
ing faces. Even Hadji rose from his " gory bed " not 
much worse, though he had been hit hard. 

There was no more quarrelling though we passed several 
caravans, but even when the men were reasonable and 
good nature prevailed some of the mules on both ade 
fell in the snow and had to be reloaded. When the 
matter is not settled as this was by violence, a good 
deal of shouting and roaring culminates in an under- 
standing that one caravan shall draw off into a place 
where the snow is shallowest, and stand still till the 
other has gone past ; but to-day scarcely a shallow place 
could be found. I always give place to asses, rathe* 
to avoid a painful spectjicle than from Immanity. On^! 
step off the track and down they go, and they never gfc"*" 
np without being unloaded. 

When we left Dizabad the mist was thick, and as i*^ 



•i 



( 



CHANGING HORSES 145 

cleared it froze in crystallised buttons, which covered 
the surface of tlje snow, but lifting ouly partially it 
revealed snowy summits, sun -lit above heavy white 
clouds; then when we reached a broad plateau, the 
iighest plain of the journey, 7800 feet in altitude, gray 
.mists drifted very near us, and opening in rifts divulged 
blackness, darkness, and tempest, and ragged peaks 
exposed to the fury of a snowstorm. Snow fell in 
showers on the plain, and it was an anxious time, for 
bad the storm which seemed impending burst on that 
wild, awful, shelterless expanse, with tired animals, and 
every landmark obliterated, some of ua must have 
perished. I have done a great deal of snow travelling, 
and know how soon every trace of even the widest and 
deepest path is effaced by drift, much more the narrow 
rut by which we were crassing this most exposed 
.jtlateau. There was not a village in sight the whole 
march, no birds, no animals. There was not a sound 
;but the venomous hiss of snow-laden squalls. It was 
"the dead of winter." 

My admirable mnle was ill of cold from having my 
Bmall saddle on him instead of his great stuffed pack- 
saddle, the chai-vadar said, and he gave nie instead a 
horse that I could not ride. Such a gait I never felt; 
less than half a mile was unbearable. I felt os if my 
eyes would be shaken out of their sockets ! The bit 
was changed, but in vain. I was obliged to get off, and 
M kindly put my saddle on a powerful Kirmanshah 

,b. I soon found that my intense fatigue on this 
lumey had been caused by riding mules, which have 
no elasticity of movement. I rode twenty miles to-day 
with ease, and could have ridden twenty more, and had 
several canters on the few places where the snow was 
well trodden. 

I was off the track trying to get past a caravan 
VOL I L 



rjoun 



U9 JOURNEYS IN PERSLA lkttm vi 

and overtake the othere, when down came the hoise and 
I in a drift fully ten feet deep. Somehow I was not 
quite detached from the saddle, and in the scrimmage 
got into it again, and a few desperate plunges brought us 
out. with the horse's breastplate broken. 

When we reached the great plateau above this vill^, 
a great black sheet of snow, surrounded by moontainB, 
now buried in white mists, now revealed, with snow 
flurries drifting wildly round their ghastly heads, 1 found 
that tlie Arab, the same horse which was so ill at Xanej. 
was " dead beat," and as it only looked a mile to the 
village I got off, and walked in the deep snow along the 
rungs of the " mule ladders," which are so fatiguing for 
liorses. But the distance was fully three miles, with a 
stream to wade through, half a mile of deep wet soil to 
plunge through, and the thawed mud of a large village to 
splash througli ; and as I dared not mount again for fear 
of catching cold, 1 trailed forlornly into Saruk, following 
the men who were riding. 

Can it he said that they rode ? Tliey sat feebly on 
animals, swaddled in felts and furs, the pngri concealing 
each face with the exception of one ejo in a blue 
goggle ; rolling from side to side, clutching at ropes auil 
halters, moaning " Ya Allah ! " — a deplorable cavalcade. 

Saruk has some poplars, and is surrounded by a 
niinous mud wall. It is a village of 150 houses, and is 
famous for very fine velvety carpets, of small patterns, 
in vivid vegetable dyes. At an altitude of 7500 feet, it 
has a severe climate, and only grows wheat and barley, 
sown in April and reaped in September. All this 
mountainous region that we are toiling through is blank 
on the maps, and may he a dead level so far as auythisg 
there is represented, though even its passes are in severtl 
cases over 7000 feet high. 

Sand; F(h. 13. — The circumstances generally are 




^berrKB n H. 



HARDSHIPS AT SARUK 



^ 



unfavourable, and we are again detained. Tiie Afghan 
orderly, who is also interpreter, ia very ill, and though 
he is very plucky it is impossible for him to move ; the 
cook seems " all to pieces," and is overcome by cough 
and lassitude ; Abbas Khan is ill, and his face has lost 
its comicality; and in the same room Hadji lies, groaning 
and moaning that he will not live through the night 

Even M 's herculean strength is not what it was. 

I have chills, hut in spite of them and the fatigue 
am really much better than wheu I left Baghdad, 
so that though I exercise the privilege of grumbliug at 
the hardships, I ought not to complain of them, though 
they are enough to break down the strongest meu. I 
really like the journey, except when I am completely 
knocked up, or the smoke is exceptionally blinding. 

Tlie snow in this yard is lying in masses twelve feet 

high, rising out of slush I do not know how many feet 

deep. It looks as If we had seen the last of the winter. 

The mercury is at 32° now. It is very damp and cold 

sitting in a room with one side open to the snow, and 

the mud floor all slush from the drip from the roof. 

L The fuel is wet, and though a man has attempted four 

mes to light a fire, he has only succeeded in making 

1 overpowering smoke, which prefers hanging heavily 

iver the floor and me to making its exit through the 

lole in the roof provided for it The door must be kept 

ten to let in l^ht, and it also lets in fowls and many 

My dhurrie haa been trampled into the slush, and 

Bk deadly cold strikes up through it. Last night a man 

p(for Hadji was kors de corahai) brought in some live 

embers, and heaped some gum tragacanth thorns and 

animal fuel upon them ; there was no chimney, and the 

hole in the roof was stopped by a clod. The result was 

^unbearable. I covered my head with blankets, but it 

i still blinding and stifling, and I had to extinguish 



148 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lkiteb vi 

the fire with water and l>ear the cold, which then vas 
about 20°. Later, there waa a tempest of snow am! 
rain, with a sudden thaw, and water dripped wilh au 
irksome sound on my well-pi-otected bed, no light would 
burn, and I Lad the mortification of knowing that tha 
aame drip was spoiling writing paper and stores which 
had been left open to dry ! But a traveller rarely He 
awake, and to-day by keeping my feet on a box, and 
living in a mackiutosh, I am out of both drip and mud 
Such a room as I am now in is the ordinary room of a 
Persian homestead. It is a cell of mud, not brick, either 
sun or kiln dried. Its sides are cracked and let in air. 
Its roof is mud, under which is some brushwood Ijing 
over the rafters. It has no light holes, but as the doM 
has shrunk considerably from the door posts, it is not 
absolutely dark. It may be about twelve feet square. 
Every part of it is blackened by years of smoke. 
The beat of it is that it is i-aised two feet from tbe 
ground to admit of a fowl-house below, and opens on a 
rough platform which runs in front of all the dwelhDf;- 
rooms. With the misfitting door and cracked aides il is 
much like a sieve. 

I have waited to describe a Persian peasant's hou« 
till I had seen more of them. The yard is an almost 
unvarying feature, whether a small enclosure with a \ov 
wall and a gateway closed at night by a screen of reeds, 
or a great farmyard like this, with an arched entrance 
and dwelling-rooms for two or three generations along 
one or more of the sides. 

The house walls are built of mud, not sun-dried brick. 
and are only one story high. The soil near villages is 
mostly mud, and by leading water to a given spot, a pit of 
mortar for building material is at once made. This being 
dug up, and worked to a proper consistency by the fe*' 
of men, is then made into a wall, piece after piece being 




» 



PEASANTS' HOUSES 

laid on by hand, till it reaches a height of four feet a 
a thickness of three — the imperative tradition of the 
Persian builder. This is allowed a few days for harden- 
ing, when another layer of similar height but somewhat 
narrower is laid upon it, takelvaks or recesses a foot deep 
or more being worked into the thickness of the wall, and 
the process is repeated till the desired height is attained. 
When the wall is thoroughly dry it is plastered inside 
and outaide with a mixture of mud and chopped straw, 
ftnd if this plastering is repeated at intervals, the style of 
construction is very durable. 

The oven or landur is placed in the floor of one room, 
at least, and answers for cooking and heating. A peasant's 
house has no windows, and the roof does not project 
beyond the wall. 

All roofs are flat Eude rafters of poplar are laid 
across the walls about two feet apart. In a ketekuda's 
at a wealthier peasant's house, above these are laid in rows 
peeled poplar rods, two inches apart, theu a rush mat, and 
then the resinous thorns of the tragacanth bush, which 
are not liable to decay ; but in the poorer houses the owner 
contents himself with a coarse reed mat or a layer of 
brushwood above the rafters. On this is spread a well- 
trodden-down layer of mud, then eight or ten inches of 
dry earth, and the whole is thickly plastered with mixed 
straw and mud. A slight slope at the back with a long 
wooden spout carries off the water. Such a roof is imper- 
Tious to rain except in very severe storms if kept in 
ler, that is, if it be plastered once a year, and well 
d after rain. Few people are so poor as not to have 
satly-made stone roller on their roofs. If this is 
ing, the roof must be well tramped aft«r rain by bare 
and in all cases the snow must be shovelled off. 
These roofs, among tlie peasantry, have no parapets. 
ley are the paradise of dogs, and in hot weather the 



■ 



160 JOUENEVS IN PERSIA LFTTEin 

people take up their beds and sleep there, partly foi 
coolness and partly because the night breeise gives 
freedom from mosquitos. In simple country life, though 
the premises of the peasants for the sake of security an 
contiguous, there are seldom even balustrades to the roofe, 
though in summer most domestic operations are carried 
on there. Fifty years ago Persian law sanctioned &e 
stoning withoiit trial or mercy of any one caught in the 
act of gazing into the premises of another, unless the gazer 
were the king. 

Upon the courtyard stahles, bams, and store-nxmu 
oi'wn, but 80 far I notice that the granary is in the house, 
and that the six-feet-high clay receptacles for grain am in 
the living-room. 

Looking from above upon a plain, the poplars tMcIi 
surround villages where there is a sufficiency of water 
attract the eye. At this season they are nothing but* 
brown patch on the snow. The villages themselves «e 
of light brown mud, and are surrounded usually by squwe 
walls with towers at the corners, and all have a giest 
gate. Within the houses or hovels the families bb 
huddled irregularly, with all their apjjurteuances, and in 
winter the flocks and herds are in subterranean pen* 
beneath. In summer the animals go forth at sunrise ami 
return at sunset. The walls, which give most of the 
villages a fortified aspect, used to afford the villagers « 
degree of protection against the predatory Turkomsnfi, 
and now give security to the flocks against Lur and 
other robbers. 

Every village has its kelchwla or headman, who is 
answerable for the taxes, the safety of travellers, and other 
matters. 

Siaskan, Feb. 16. — The men being a little better, we 
I left Saruk at nine on the 14th, I on a bright little 
L Baghdad! horse, in such good case that he frequently 



FERAGHAN CARPETS 151 

threw wp his heels in happy playfiiluess. The temperature 
had fallen considerably, there had been a fi-eah snowfall, 
and the day was very bright. The Arab horses are 

tEfering badly in their eyes from the glare of the snow. 
If I had not had such a lively little horae I should 
Te found the march a tedious one, for we were six 
hours in doing eleven and a half miles on a level ! The 
head charvadar had gone on early to make some arrange- 
i^enta, and the others loaded the animals so badly that 

Ei and the cook rolled off their mules into the deep 
-frozen slush from the packs turning just outside 
jatea. We had three mules with us with worn-out 
tackle, and the loads rolled over many times, tlie riders, 
who were too weak to help themselves, getting bad falls. 
As each load, owing to the broken tackle, took fifteen 
pinutes to put on again, and the men could do little, 
great deal of hard, exasperating work fell on M- — — . 
lAer one bad fall in a snowdril't myself, I rode on alone 
idth one mnle with a valuable burden. This, turn- 
for the fourth time, was soon under his body, and he 
^egan to kick violently, quite dismaying me by the bang 
if his hoofs against cases containing scientific instruments. 
't was a droll comedy in the anow. I wanted to get 
old of his halter, but every time 1 went near him he 
duaked round and flung up his heels, till I managed to 
i the ragged surcingle and set him free, when I caught 
n in deep snow, in which my horse was very unwilling 
risk himself 

Soon after leaving Saruk, which, as I mentioned before, 
B famous for very fine carpets, we descended gently upon 
le great plain of Feraghan, perhaps the largest carpet- 
troducing district of Persia. These carpets are very fine 
tod their patterns are unique, bringing a very high price. 
pas plain has an altitude of about 7000 feet, is 45 mile.s 
length by from 8 to 15 in breadth, is officially stated 



i 



u 



to have 650 villages upon it, all agricultural and caiyet 
producing, and is considerably irrigated by streams, which 
eventually lose themselves in a salt lake at its eastern 
extremity. It is surrounded by hills, with mountain 
ninges behind them, and must be, both as to productive- 
ness and population, one of the most flourishing district} 
in Persia. 

We were to have marched to Kashgird, hut on reach- 
ing the hamlet of Ahang Garang I found that AbUa 
Klian had taken quarters there, saying that Kashgird was 
in ruins. 

Hadji, who had allowed himself to roll off several 
times, was moaning and weeping on the floor of my 
room, groaning out, with many cries of Va Allah, " Let 
me stay here till I'm better; I don't want any wages; 1 
shall be killed, oh, killed ! Oh, ray family ! I sliall 
never see Bushira any more ! " Though there was much 
reason to think he was shamming, I did the little that be 
calls his " work," and left him to smoke his opium pipe 
and sleep by the fire in peace. 

I was threatened with snow -blindness in one eye; in 
fuel I saw nothing with it, and had to keep it covered 
up. One of the charvadars lay moaning outside my 
room, i>oor fellow, taking chlorodyne everj- half-hour, and 
aitutlier had got a had foot from frost-bite. They have 
Vwei) terribly exposed, and the soft snow at a higher 
Muiterature has been worse for them than the dry 
Bowtlery snow at a low temperature, as it soaks their 
KK>kM, shoes, and leggings, and then freezes. Making 
litttijl's beef tea warms one, and they like it even from 
« Christian hand. The Afghan orderly bore up bravely, 
^Ml was very weak. Indeed the prospect of getting 
to Tihran is darkening daily, 
im, though open to the snow at one end, was 
9, The oven liad been lighted twelve hours 



A SNOW VIEW 163 

re. and it was delightful to hang one's feet into the 
1 hole. There were holes for light in the roof, and 
i though it was, so long as daylight lasted these were 
[fciever free from veiled faces looking down. 

In order to become thoroughly warm it was necessary 
) walk long and briskly on the roof, and this brought 
ill the villagers below it to stare the stare of vacuity 
eather than of curiosity. A snow scene is always beauti- 
l at sunset, and this was exceptionally so, as the long 
r indigo shadows on the plain threw into greater definite- 
. ness the gleaming, glittering hills, at one time dazzling in 
sunshine, at another flushed in the sunset. The 
ain of Feraghan as seen from the roof was one smooth 
of pure deep snow, broken only by brown 
iplasbes, where mud villages were emphasised by brown 
wplais, the unbroken, unsullied snow, two feet deep on 
Ihe level and any number in the drifts, looking like a 
' picture of the Arctic Ocean, magnificent in its solitude, 
one difficult track, a foot wide, the solitary link with the 
larger world which then seemed so very far away. 

Tilings went better yesterday on the whole, though 
the mercury fell to zero in the night, and I was awakened 
several times by the cold of my open room, and when a 
number of people came at daylight for medicines my 
fingers were so benumbed that I could scarcely measure 
them. \\'hat a splendid field tor a medical missionary 
loving his profession tliis plain with its 650 villE^es 
would be, where there are curable diseases by the 
hundred I Many of the suffering people have told me 
•Chat they would give lodging and the best of their 
~ ' to any English doctor who would travel among 

EL 

The loads were well balanced yesterday, and Hadji 
I only pulled his over once and only rolled off once, 
■.when Abbas Khan exclauned, " He's not a man ; why did 





154 JOUBSEVS IK PERSIA LEnwn 

Allah make such a creature ? " We got off at mm, the 
roofs beiug crowdeil to see ue start. Fuel is very scaice 
at Ahang Garang. For the cooking and "parlour" fin, 
the charge was forty-five kra/is, or about twenty-^t 
ahillinga ! Probably this included a large modakd. For 
a room from two to four krans is expected. 

Through M 's kindness I now have a good horse 

to ride, and the difference in fatigue is incredible. We 
embarked again on the vast plain of snow. It waa a 
grim day, and most ghastly and desolate this end of the 
plain looked, where the waters having done their fertili^ 
ing work are lost ia a salt lake, the absolutely vbite 
hills round the plain being emphasised by the blue 
neutral tiut of the sky. For the first ten miles there 
was little more than a breeze, for the last ten a pitiless, 
ruthless, riotous north-east«rIy gale, blowing up the anow 
in hissing drifts, as it swept across the plain with » 
desolate screech. 

The coverings with which we were swaddled were 
soon penetrated. The cold seemed to enter tlie boiiea,»in' 
to strike the head and face like a red-hot hammer, ston- 
ning as it struck, the tears wrung from the eyes were 
frozen, at times even the eyelids were frozen together. 
The frozen snow hit one hard. Hands and feet were 
by turns benumbed and in anguish, terrific blasts loaded 
with hard lumps of snow came down from the liiU*' 
snow was drifting from all the white ranges above us ; o" 
the more exposed part of the track the gusts burst with 
such violence as to force some of the mides off it to 
flounder in the deep snow ; my Arab was struck w 
mercilessly on his sore swollen eyes that at times 1 
could scarcely, with my own useless hands, induce him to 
face the swirls of fronen snow. Swifter and more resist- 
less were the ice-laden squalls, more and more obliterated 
became the track, till after a fight of over three hours, 




"HOSPITAL SUNDAY 



and the ceaseless crossing of rolling hills and deep 
bollovrs. we reached the top of a wiud-hared slope 7700 
feet Id altitude and saw this village, looking from that 
distance quite imposing, on a hill on the other side of a 
atream crossed hy a brick bridge, with a ruined foit on 

, height above it. It promised shelter — that was all. 
Below the village there was an expanse of snow, sloping 
up to pure white hills outlined against an indigo depth of 
lominous -looking clouds, 

Wliile M went up a hill for some scientific work, 

I followed the orderly, who could scarcely sit on his 
borse from pain and weakness, into the most wretchedly 
Toinous, deserted-looking village I have yet seen, epitomis- 
ing the disenchantment which a near view of an Eastern 
«ity brings, and up a steep alley to a ruinous yaiU heaped 
with snow-covered ruins, on one side of which were some 
iminous rooms, their backs opening on a precipice aVtove 
the river, and on the north-east wind. I timibled off my 
horse. Abbas Khan, the least sick of the men, with be- 
numbed hands breaking my fall. The severe cold had 
BtiOened all my joints. We could scarcely speak ; the 
bones of my face wei-e in intense pain, and I felt as if 
the cold were congealing my heart. 

With Abbas Khan's help I chose the rooms, the worst 
we have ever had. The one I took for myself has an 
i^en-work door facing the wind, and it is impossible to 
bave a fire, for the draught blows sticks, ashes, and 
Uubers over the room. The others are worse. It is an 
ftwful night, blowing and snovring; all tlie men but two 
axe hora de covibat. The poor orderly, using an Afghan 
{thrase, said, " The wind has played the demon with me." 
He has a fearful cough, and hitmorrht^e from the lungs 

I throat The cook is threatened with pleurisy. It may 
IValy be called " Hospital Sunday." The day has been 
oliiefly spent in making mustard poultices, which M 



166 JOITRNEVS IN PERSIA let 

is constantly crossing the yard in three feet of snow to ' 
put on. and protectors for the chests and backs, preparing 
beef tea, making up medicines, etc. 

Surely things must have reached their ■worst Out of 
seven men only one servant, and lie an Indian lad witb 
a fearful squint and eyes so badly inflamed that he can 
hardly see where he puts things down, is able to do any- 
thing. Two of the charvadars are lying ill in the stable. 
Mustard plasters, Dover's powders, salicylate of sod", 
emetics, poultices, clinical thermometers, ehlorodjiie, Mil 
beef tea have been in requisition all day. The cook. 
the Afghan orderly, and Hadji seem really ill -At 
eight this raoniing groans at my door took me out, and 
one of the muleteers was lying there in severe pain, with 
the hard fine snow beating on him. Later I heard fresb 
moaning on my threshold, and found Hadji fallen there 
with my bi'eakfast. I got him in and he fell again, up- 
setting the tea, and while I attended to him the big d(^ 
ate up the chapaities ! He had a good deal of fever, and 
severe rheumatism, and on looking at his eyes I saw 
that he was nearly blind. He lost his blue glasses some 
days ago. I sent him to bed in the " kitchen " for the 
whole day, where he lay groaning in comfort by the 
fire with his opium pipe and his tea. He thinks he will 
not survive the night, and has juat given me his dying 
directions 1 

Afterwards M came for the thermometer And 

clilorodyne, and remarked that my room was "unfit for a 
beast." The truth is I share it with several verj* big 
dogs. It did look grotesquely miserable last night — 
black, fireless, wet, dirty, with all my things lying on 
the dirty floor, having been tumbled about by these 
dogs in their search for my last box of Brand's meat 
lozenges, which they got out of a strong, tightly-tied-up 
bag, which they tore into strips. On going for my for 



CHEST PROTECTORS 157 

cloak to-day, Uiese three dogs, who, I helieve, would take 
on civilisation more quickly thau their masters, were all 
Eonnd rolled up under it, and lying on my bed. 

The mercury in the " parlour " with a lai^e fire 
oannot be raised above 36°. In my room to-night the 
wet floor is frozen liard and the mercury ia 20°. This 
is nothing after 12° and 16° below zero, but the furious 
Bast wind and a singular dampness in the air make it 
jwry severe. Yesterday, before the sky clouded over, 
iieie was a most remarkable ring or halo of prismatic 
Kiloura round the sun, ominous of the storm which has 
Bidlowed. 

This place standing high without shelter is fearfully 
Bspoeed ; there is no milk and no comfort of any kind 
for the sick men. We have decided to wrap them up 
tad move them to Kilm, where there is a Persian doctor 
Srith a European education ; hut it ia a great risk, though 
Ae lesser of two. I have just finished four protectors 
for the back and cheat, three-quarters of a yard long by 
|ixt«en inches wide, buttoning on the shoulders, of a very 
taSt felt naviad nearly half an inch thick— a precaution 
Innch to be commended. 

I think that Hadji, though in great pain, poor fellow, 
la partly shamming. He professed this evening to have 
riolent fever, and the thermometer shows that he has 
Bone. Even the few things wliich I thought he had done 
Ecu me, such as making cluipatties, I find have been done 
flr others. It is a pity for himself as well as for me 
lutt he should be so incorrigibly lazy. 

Taj Khatan, Feb. JS. — Yesterday we had a severe 
barch, and owing first to the depth of the snow, and 
then to the depth of the mud, we were seven hours in 
Icung twenty-one miles. The wind was still intensely 
old — bitter indeed. There are few remarks to be made 
ibout a country buried in snow. The early miles wi 




J 



16B JOURNEVS tN PERSIA lettmti 

across the fag eud of the dazzling plain of Peiaglian. 
wlucli instead of being covered with villages is ao- 
uninhabited desert with a salt lake. Then the road 
winds among mountains of an altitnde of 8000 and 900O 
feet and more, its highest point being 8350 feet, whei« 
we began a descent which will land us at Tihntn at m 
level under 4000 feet. Snowy mountains and seovy 
plains were behind — bare brown earth was to come all. 
loo soon 

Winding wearily round low hills, meeting caravam of 
camels to which we had to give way, and of assw 
floundering in the snow, we came in the evening to a 
broad slope with villages, poplars, walnuts, and irrigEted 
lands, then to the large and pietureaquely situated village 
of (iivr on a steep bank above a rapid stream, and jnst 
at dusk to the important ^ill^e of Jairnd, also od high 
ground above the same river, ami surrounded by gardens 
and an extraordinary number of fruit trees. The altitnde 
is 6900 feet.^ I had a 6«/a/:Aa;w, very, cold, and w»J 
fairly benumbed for some time after the long cold march. 

A great many people applied for medicine, and sonw 
of the maladies, specially when they affect children, miJM 
one sick at heart. Hadji is affecting to be stone deaf, so 
he no longer interprets for sick people, which creates an 
additional difficulty. We left this morning at ten, 
descended 2000 feet, and suddenly left the snow beliiEi 
Vast, gray, and grim the snow-covered mountains looked 
as they receded into indigo gloom, with snow clouds 
drifting round their ghastly heads and across the daEzling 
snow plains in which we had been floundering for thirtj 
days. It is strange to see mother earth once more — 
locky, or rather stony hills, mud hills, mud plains, mud 

> Jairud exports frait to Eilm and even to Tihran, and in the lUtiuu 
t n«i iut«reatei! to lind that the best pears and penubes in the RuiuuUii 
—irliat uuDie fruiii ita lunuriant orchards. 



LETTER VI PERSIAN BHEAD-MAKINC 150 

slopes, a brown world, with a snow world above. Two 
pink hills rise alwve the brown plain, and some toothed 
peaks, but the rest of the view ia simply hills and slopes 
of mud and gravel, bearing thorns, and the relics of last 
year's thistles and wormwood. The atmospheric colouring 
is, however, very fine. 

This is a large village with beehive roofs in, and 
of. mud. A fiuaffmire surrounds it and is in the centre 



I 




i 



of it, and the crumbling houses are thrown ] 
oualy down upon it. It is nearly the roughest place I 
have seen, and the worst accommodation, though Abbas 
Khan says it is the best house in the vills^e. 
My room has an oven in the floor, neatly lined with 
clay, and as I write the women are making bread by a 
very simple process. The oven is well heated by the 
live embers of animal fuel They work the flour and 
water dough, to which a piece of leaven from the last 
bokiag has been added, into a flat roimd cake, about 
;hteen inches in diameter and half an inch thick, place 



160 JOURNEVS IN PERSIA LETT 

it quickly oil a very dirty cushion, and clap it agiunst 
the concave interior of the oven, withdrawing the cushion. 
In one miuute it is baked and removed. 

A aloi)ing hole iu the floor leads to tie fowl-house 
The skin of a newly-killed sheep hangs up. A pack 
saddle and gear take up one corner, my bed another, and 
the owner's miscellaneous property fills up the rest of the 
blackened, cracked mud hovel, thick with the sooty 
cobwebs and duat of generations. The door, which can 
only be shut by means of a wooden bolt outside, ia aii 
inches from tbe ground, so that fowls and cats run in 
and out with impunity. Behind my bed there is a door- 
less entrance to a dark den, full of goat's hair, bones, and 
other stores. In front tltere is a round hole for letting 
in light, which I persistently fill up with a blanket whidi 
is as persistently withdrawn. There is no privacy, for 
though tbe people are glad to let their rooms, they only 
partially vacate them, and are iu and out all the time. 
Outside there is mud a foot deep, then a steep slope, and 
a disgusting green pool, and the drinking water is 
nauseous and brackish. The village people here and 
everywhere seem of a very barndess sort, 

JCdvi, Ask Wednesdaijy 189G. — It was really very 
difficult to get away from Taj Kbatan. The charvadar 
came ou here, leaving only two men to load twelvt 

mules. M practically had to load them himsell', 

and to reload them when the tackle broke and the loaiU 
turned. Hadji and the cook were quite incapable, the 
Afghan orderly, who seemed like a dj-ing man, was left 
beliind ; in fact there were no servants and no interpreters, 
and the groom was so ill be could hardly sit ou a borae. 

The march of twenty-five miles took fully eight hours, 
but on the Arab horse, and with an occasional gallop, I 
got through quite comfoilably, and have nothing to 
complain of. The road lies through a country of mud 



LETTEHVi ARRIVAL AT k6m 161 

hills, brown usually, drab sometimes, streaked witb deep 
madder red, and occasionally pale preen clay — stones, 
thistles, and thorns their only crop. [1 passed over much 
of this country in the spring, and though there were a 
few flowers, chiefly bulba, and the thoma were clothed 
witb a scanty leafage, and the thistles and artemiaia were 
green-gray instead of buff, the general aspect of the 
region was the same.] There was not a village on the 
route, only two or three heaps of deserted ruins and two 
or three ruinous mud imamzadas, no cultivation, streams, 
or springs, the scanty pools brackish, here and there the 
glittering whiteness of saline efflorescence, not a tree or 
even bush, nothing living except a few goats, picking up, 
who knows how, a scanty living, — a blighted, blasted 
jregjon, a land without a raismi (HHrc. 
U Then came low mud ranges, somewhat glorified by 
■kmosphere, higher hills on the left, ghastly with snow 
miiich was even then failing, glimpses far away to the 
northward of snowy mountains among heavy masses of 
sunlit clouds, an ascent, a gap in the mud hdls, some low 
peaks of white, green, and red clay, a great plain partly 
green with springing wheat, and in the centre, in the 
glow of sunset, the golden dome and graceful minarets of 
^the shrine of Fatima, the sister of Keza, groups of trees, 
wmA the mud bouses, mud walls, and many domes and 
pdnarets of the sacred city of Kilni. 

It Descending, we trotted for some miles through irrigated 
wheat, passed a walled garden or two, rode along the 
bank of the Abi Xhonsar or Abi Kfim, which we had 
followed down from Givr, admired. the gleaming domes 
and tiled miuarets of the religious buildings on its bank, 
and the nine-arched brick bridge which spans it, and 
iched a sort of hotel outside the gates, a superior 
■avanserai with good, though terribly draughty guest- 
Qis upstairs, furnished with beds, chairs, and tables, 

VOL. I 





162 JOURXETS IX PERSIA letter ti 

suiteil for ihe upper class of pilgrims who resort to this 
famoos shrine. 

To have arrived here in sood health, and well able 
for the remaining jonmev of nearly a hundred miles, is 
nothing else than a triumph of race, of good feeding 
through successive generations, of fog -bom physique, 
nurtured on damp east winds ! 

There is an air of civilisation about this place. The 
rooms have windows with glass panes and doors which 
shut, a fountain in front, beyond that a garden, and then 
the river, and the golden shrine of Fatima and its ex- 
quisite minarets. My door opens on a stone-flagged roof 
with a fine view of the city and hills — an excellent 
place for taking exercise. So strong is Mohammedan 
fanaticism here that much as I should like to see the city, 
it would be a very great risk to walk through it except in 
disguise. 

M borrowed a ialirawan from the telegraph 

clerk and sent it back with two horses to Taj Khatan for 
the (jrderly, who was left there veiy ill yesterday morning, 
under Abbas Khan's charge, the KJian feeling so ill that he 
lay down inside it instead of riding. Hadji gave up work 
altogetlier, so 1 unpacked and pitched my bed, glad to 
be warmed by exercise. Near 8 p.m. Abbas Khan burst 
into the "parlour" saying that the taktrawan horses 
were stuck in the mud. He eWdently desired to 
avoid the march back, but two mules have been sent to 
replace the horses, and two more are to go to-monow. 
The orderly was so ill that I expect his corpse rather 
than himself. 

This morning Hadji, looking fearful, told me that he 
should die to-day, and he and the cook are now in bed in 
opposite corners of a room below, with a good fire, feverish 
and moaning. It is really a singular disaster, and shows 
what the severity of the journey has been. The Persian 



.ETTBB VI THE SHAH'S DAUGHTER 163 

loctor, with a European medical education, on whom our 
lopes were built, when asked to come and see these poor 
aen, readily promised to do so ; but the Princess, the 
Shah's daughter, whose physician he is, absolutely refuses 
)ennission, on the ground that we have come through a 
egion in which there is supposed to be cholera ! 

LL.B. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTEK VII 



KB)i,F&.t 



At five yesterday aft«rnooii Abbas Khan rode in saying 
that the iakirawan, with the orderly much better. «>s 
only tliree miles off. Tliis was good news ; a mattrffis 
was put down for him next tlie fire and all preparations 
for his comfort were made. Snow showers Lad been 
falling much of the day, there was a pitiless east wini, 
and as darkness came on snow fell persistently. Two 
hours passed, but no taktravxm arrived. At 7.30 Abbas 
Khan was ordered to go in search of it with a good 
lantern; 8, 9, 10 o'clock came without any news. At 
10.30, the man whose corpse I had feared to see 
came in much exhausted, having crawled for two mils 
through the mire and snow. The smear, who pretended 
to start with the lantern, never went farther than tlie 
coffee-room at the gate, where he had spent an unoffi- 
scientious but cheery evening ! 

In the pitch darkness the laktrawan and mules had 
fallen off the road into a gap, the takrawan was smashed, 
and a good white mule, one of the " light diWsion," was 
killed, her hack being broken. This was not the onK 
disaster. Hadji had lain down ou the borrowed mattress 
and it had taken fire from the live ashes of his pipe and 
was burned, and he was a little scorched. 

The telegraphist was to have started for Isfahan the 
next morning with his wife and child in the litter, in 



vir HADJI REJUVENATED 166 

to vacate the house for the new official and hia 
family, and their baggage had actually started, but now 
they are detained till this taktrawan can be repaired. In 
the meantime another official has arrived with his goods 
.and a large family, a most uncomfortable situation for 
'toth parties, but tbey bear it with the utmost cheerfulness 
imd good nature. 

Last night I made Hadji drink a mug of hot milV 
Trith two tablespoonfuls of brandy in it, and it worked 
wonders. This morning, instead of a nearly blind man 
groping his way about with difficulty, I beheld a man 
with nothing the matter but a small speck on one eye. 
It must have been snow-blinduess. He looks quite 
" spry." It is not only the alcohol which has cured him, 
but that we are parting by mutual consent ; and feeling 
Borry for the man, I have given him more than his wages, 
and his fidl demand for bis journey back to BusMre, with 

Iditional warm clothing. M has also given him a. 

landsome present. 

I fear he has deceived me, and that the stone deaf- 
less, feebleness, idiocy, and the shaking, palsied gait of 
a man of ninety — all but the snow-blindness — have been 
assumed in order to get his return journey paid, when 
he found that the opportunities for making money were 
not what he expected. It is better to be deceived 
twenty times than to be hard on these poor fellows 
once, but he has been exasperating, and I feel somewhat 
Aggrieved at having worked so hard to help a man who 
" malingering." The last seen of bim was an active, 
;t man walking at a good pace by the side of hia 
mule, at least forty years thrown off. [He did not 
then leave Kfini, but being seized with pleurisy was 
treated with great kindness by Mr. Lyne the electrician, 
afterwards by the Amin-es- Sultan (the Prime 
inister), who was visiting Kftm, and who, thinking to 






■And 
■Kia 



166 JOURNEVS IN PEESIA iBimra 

oblige me, brought him up to Tihran in liis train!] 
Those who hod known him for years gave a very bsd 
account of him, but said that if he liked he couJd be a 
good servant. It is the tirst time that I have "tiew 
unfortunate in my travelling servant. 

The English telegraph line, and a post-office, open 
once a week, are the tokens of civilisation in Xfim. 
A telegraphic invitation from the British Minister in 
Tiliran, congratulatory telegrams on our safety fioni 
Tihran, Bushire, and India, and an opportunity far 
posting letters, make one feel once more in the world. 
The weather is grim, bitterly cold, with a strong north- 
east wind, raw and damp, but wliile snow is whitening 
the hills only rain and sleet fall here. The sun has 
not ahone since we came, but the strong cold air is 
invigorating like our own climate. 

Taking advantage of it being Friday, the Mohammedan 
day of rest, when most of the shops are closed and Uie 
bazars are deserted, we rode through a portion of them 
preceded by the wild figure of Abbas l^an, and took 
t«a at the telegraph office, where they were most kind 
and pleasant regarding the accident which had put tbem 
to so much inconvenience. 

Kflm is on the beaten track, and has a made nid 
to Tihran. Almost every book of travels in Persia has 
something to say upon it, but except that it is the 
second city in Persia in point of sanctity, and that il 
thrives as much by the bodies of the dead which are 
brought in thousands for burial as by the tens of 
thousands of pilgrims who annually visit the shrine rf 
Fatima, and that it is renowned for fanaticism, there is 
not much to aay about it 

Situated in a great plain, tlie gleam of its golden 
dome and its slender minarets is seen from afar, and 
the deep green of its orchards, and the bright green ot 



lETTER VII THE SHItlNE OF FATIMA 167 

the irrigated and cultivated lands wliich surround it, 
are a splash of welcome fertility on the great brown 
vaste. Singular toolliy peaks of striated marl of brilliant 
colouring — red, blue, green, orange, and salt peaks 
Tery white — give a curious brilliancy to its environ- 
irent, but this salt, which might be a source of wealth 
rto the city, is not worked, only an ass-load or two at 
I& time being brought in to supply the necessities of the 
market 

The shrine of Fatima, the sistpr of Reza the i 




Jmam, who sleeps at Meshed, is better to Kflm than 
Bait mines or aught else. Moslems, though they regard 
Women with unspeakable coutempt, agree to reverence 
iFatima as a very holy and almost worshipful person, 
and her dust renders Kftm a holy place, attracting tens 
of thousands of pilgrims every year, although, unlike 
pilgrimages to Meshed and Kerbela, KClm confers no 
lifelong designation on those by whom it exists. Its 
wtimated population is 10,000 souls, and at times this 
number is nearly doubled. Pilgrimage consists in a 
fFisit to the tomb of Fatima, paying a fee, and in some 
eases adding a votive offering. Vows of abstinence 



188 JOURNEYS IS PERSIA uttkb tu 

from some special siu are frequently made at the strine 
and are carefully registered. 

The dead, liowever, wlio are annually brought in 
thousands to be buried iu the sacred soil which sur- 
rounds the shrine, are the fireat source of the wealth of 
Kfini. These corpses travel, as to Kerbela, ou mules, 
four beinp lashed on one animal occasionally, some fresh, 
some decomposing, others only bags of exhumed boDes. 
The graves occupy an euormoua area, of which the 
shrine is the centre. The kings of the Kajar dynasty, 
members of royal families, and 450 saints are actually 
buried within the precincts of the slirine. The price of 
interments varies with the proximity to the dust of 
Fatima from six kraiis to one hundred tinimTis, The 
population may be said to be a population of undertakers. 
Death meets one everywhere. The Ab-i-Khonsar, which 
supplies the drinking water, percolates through "dead 
men's bones and all uncleanness." Vestments for the 
dead are found in the bazars. Biers full and empty 
traverse the streets in numbers. Stone-cutting for grave- 
stones is a most lucrative business. The charvadars of 
KQm prosper on caravans of the dead. There is a 
legion of gravediggers, K&m is a gruesome city, a 
vast charnel-house, yet its golden dome and mluarete 
brighten the place of deatli. 

The dome of Fatima is covered with sheets of copper 
plated with gold an eighth of an inch in thickness, and 
the ornament at the top of the dome, which is of pure 
gold, is said to weigh 140 lbs. The slender minarets 
which front this imamzada are covered with a mosaic of 
highly-glazed tiles of exquisite tints, in which an azure blue, 
a canary yellow, and an iridescent green predominate, and 
over all there is a sheen of a golden hue. The shrine is 
inaccessible to Christians. I asked a Persian doctor if I 
might look in for one moment at the thi^eshold of the 




II THE CITY OF k6m 169 

' outer court, and he replied in French, '* Are you then 
weary of life ? " ^ 

My Indian servant, an educated man on whose faithful 
though meagre descriptions I can rely, visited the shrine 
and describes the dome as enriched with arabesques in 
mosaic and as hung with «; volos, consisting chiefly of 
strips of silk and cotton. The tomb itself, he says, is 
covered with a wooden ark, with certain sacred sentences 
cut upon it, and this is covered by a large brown shawl. 
Round this ark, which is under the dome, Keiman, 
Kaslimir, and Indian shawls are laid down as carpets. 
This open space is surrounded with steel railings inlaid 
with gold after the fashion of the nidlo work of Japan, 
and the whole is enclosed with a solid silver fence, the 
rails of which are " as thick as two thumbs, and as high 
aa a tall man's head." This imamzada itself is regarded 
aa of great antiquity. 

Two Persian kings, who reigned in the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, are buried near the beautiful 
minarets, which are supposed to be of the same date. 
There are many mosqnes and minarets in Kflni, besides a 
quantity of conical imnm^iadas, the cones of which have 
formerly been covered with glazed blue tiles of a turquoise 
tint, some of which still remain. It was taken by the 
Afghans in 1V72, and though partially rebuilt is very 
ruinous. It has a mud wall, disintegrating from neglect, 
surrounded occasionally by a ditch, and at other times 
by foul and stagnant ponds. The ruiuousness of Ktlm 
can scarcely be exaggerated. 

The bazars are large and very busy, and are con- 
siderably more picturesque than those of Kinnanshah. 
The town lives by pilgrims and corpses, and the wares 

' I spent two dsya nt Kfim &ve weeks later, nnd saw the whole of it in 
liiggnise, nnd in onler to uttiiin bouio toiitiimity of ilcscriptioL I put my 
two letters together. 



flTO JOURNEYS IN PERSIA Lmen tii 

displayed to attract the former are more attractive thau 
usual. There are nearly 450 shops, of which forty-three 
sell Manchester goods almost exclusively. Coarse chinii, 
and 'pottery often of graceful shapes with a aky-hlue 
glaze, and water-coolers are among the industries of ihis 
city, which also makes shoes, and tans leather witb 
pomegranate bark. I 

The Ah-i-Khonsar is now full and rapid, but ia t j 
mere thread in summer. The nioe-arched bridge, wili 
its infamously paved roadway eighteen feet wide, is an 
interesting object from nil points of view, for while its 
central arch has a span of forty-five feet, the others have 
only spans of twenty. The gateway beyond the bridge 
is tawdrily ornamented with blue and green glazed tilee. 
After seeing several of the cities of Persia, I am quite 
inclined to give Eilm the palm for interest and beauty of ' 
aspect, when seen from any distant point of view. 

That it is a " holy " city, and that a pilgrimage to its 
shrine is supposed to atone for sin, are its great interests 
Its population is composed in large proportion of vioUah 
and Siyyida, or descendants of Mohammed, and as a wliok 
is devoted to the reigning Shiah creed. It has a theo- 
logical college of much repute, established by Fath' Ali 
Shah, which now has 100 students. The women aw 
said to be very devout, and crowd the mosques on Friday 
evenings, when their devotions are led by an imam. The 
men are fanatically religious, though the fanaticism is 
somewhat modified. No wine may be sold in K&m, and 
no Jew or Armenian is allowed to keep a shop, 

Kftm, being a trading city, manufactures a certain 
amount of public opinion in its business circles, whicli 
differs not very considerably from that which prevails al 
Kirmanshah. The traders accept it as a foregone c«ii- 
Ldusion that Russia will occupy Persia as far as Isfahan 
n the death of the present Shah, and regard such a destiny 




1 



THE GARRULITY OF ENGLAND 



" fate," If only their religiou is not interfered with. 
Kit matters little, they say, whether they pay their taxes to 
fttlie Shah or the Czar. To judge from their speech, Islam 
■is everything to them, and their country very little, and 
■tiie strong hond of the faith which rules life and thought 
pfrom the Pillars of Hercules to the Chinese frontier far 
' outweighs the paltry considerations of patriotism. But 
my impression is that all Orientals prefer the tyrannies 
and exactions, and the swiftness of injustice or justice of 
I men of their own creed and race to good government on 
^ihe part of unintelligible aliens, and that though Persians 
Jaeem pretty comfortable in the prospect of a double 
■occupation of Persia, its actual accomplishment might 
Katrike out a flash of patriotism. 

Probably this ruinous, thinly -peopled country, with 
e water and less fuel, and only two roads which deserve 
name, has posaibilities of resurrection under greatly 
langed circumstances. Of the two occupations which 
1 regarded as certain, I think that most men, at least 
1 Central and Southern Persia, would prefer an English 
scupation, but every one says, *' England talks and does 
[not act," and that "Russia will pour 100,000 troops into 
while England is talking in London." I. L B. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTER VIII 



Caravakbebai or Aliabad, FA SS. 

Twelve hours and a half of hard riding have brought ns 
here in two days. No doctor could be obtained in Ktlin, 
and it was necessary to bring the sick men on as quickly 
its possible for medical treatment. It was bitterly eolJ 
nn the last day, though the altitude is only 3400 feet. 
and it was a tiresome day, for I had not only to look 
over and repack, but to clean the cooking utensils and 
other things, which had not been touched apparently suice 
we left Baghdad ■ 

This is a tedious part of the journey, a "beaten track " 
with few features of interest, the great highway from 
Isfahan to Tihran, a road of dreary width ; where it is 
a made road running usually perfectly straight, with 
a bank and a ditch on each side. The thaw is now 
complete, and travelling consists of an attempt to get on 
by the road till it becomes an abyss whicli threatens to 
prove Ijottomless, then there is a plunge and a struggle 
to the top of the bank, or over the bank to the trodden 
waste, but any move can be only temporarj-, the all- 
poworful mire regulates the march. The snow is nothing 
to the mud. Frequently carcasses of camels, mules, and 
asses, which have lain down to die under their loads, were 
passed, then caravans with most of the beasts entangled in 
I miry clay, unable to rise till they were unloaded 
r men up to their knees in the quagmire, and, worst of 



IKTTEH viir A NOBLE CARAVANSERAI 173 

all, mules loaded with the dead, so loosely tied up iii 
planks that in sotDe cases when the mule Sounders and 
■fells, the miserable relics of humanity tumble out upon 
the swamp ; and these scenes of falling, struggling, and 
even perishing animals are repeated continually along 
the level parts of this scarcely passable highroad. 

loads, owing to bad tackle, were always coming 
ofif, the groom's mule fell badly, the packs came off another, 
and half an hour was spent in catching the animal, then 
was thrown from my horse into soft mud. 
Cultivation ceases a short distance irom Kim, giving 
:e to a brown waste, with patches of saline efflorescence 
ipon it, on which high hills covered partially with snow 
■end down low spurs of brown mud. The water nearly 
everywhere is brackish, and only just drinkable. After 
crossing a rapid muddy river, nearly dry in summer, by 
a much decayed bridge of seven or eight low arches, 
we reached terra firma, and a long gi'adual ascent and 
ft series of gallops brought us to the large caravanserai of 
Shashgird, an immense place with imposing pretensions 
which are fully realised within. In the outer court 
camels were lying in rows. A iine tiled archway leads 
to an immense quadrangle, with a fine stone abambar 
or covered receptacle for water in the middle. All round 
the quadrangle are arched recesses or mangers, each with 
& room at the back, to the number of eighty. At two of 
the corners there are enclosed courtyards with fountains, 
several superior rooms with beds (much to be avoided), 
chairs, mirrors, and tables fairly clean — somewhat dreary 
luxury, but fortunately at this season free from vermin. 
That caravanserai can accommodate 1000 men in rooms, 
and 1500 mulea. 

To-day'a long march, which, however, has had more 
road suitable for galloping, has been over wild, weird, 
desolate, God-forsaken country, interesting from its de- 



174 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

Bolation aud its great wastes, forming part of the Kavir or 
Great Salt Desert of Persia.absolutely solitary, with scarcely 
e. liainlet— miles of the gi-eat highway of Persia without 
a living creature, no house, no bueh, notliing. Later, there 
were some vultures feasting ou a dead camel, and R mule- 
load of two bodies dowa in the mud. 

Some miles from Shashgird, far from the road, there is 
a lat^e salt lake over which some statiouary mists were 
brooding. Beyond this an ascent among snow clouds 
along some trenched laud where a few vines and sapHugs 
have been planted leads to a caravanserai built for the 
accommodation of state officials on their journeys, where 
in falling snow we vindicated our origin iu the triumphaut 
West by taking lunch on a windy verandah outside rather 
than in the forlorn dampness of the inside, and brought a 
look of surprise even over the impassive face of the 
serindar. 

When we left the snow was falling in large wet flakes, 
and the snow clouds were drifting wildly among the peaks 
of a range which we skirted for a few miles and then 
crossed at a considerable height among wonderful volcanic 
formations, mounds of scorire, and outcrops of volcanic 
rock, hilla of all shapes fantastically tumbled about, 
chiefly black, looking as if their fires had only just died 
out, streaked and splotched with brilliant ash— orange, 
carmine, and green — a remarkable volcanic scene, backed 
by higher hills looking ghastly in the snow. 

After passing over an absolutely solitary region of 

camel-brown plains and slopes at a gallop, M a little 

in front always, and Abbas Khan, the wildest figure 
imaginable, always half a length behind, the thud of the 
thundering hoofs mingling with the screech of the cutting 
north wind which, coming over the snowy Elburz range, 
benumbed every joint, on the slope of a black volcanic hill 
we came upon the lofty towers and gaudy tiled front of 




u A "MADE ROAD" 17S 

i great caravanserai, iiupoaing at a distance iu the 
and snow cloutia, but shabby on a nearer view, 
I tending to dialntegrate from the presence of saltpetre 
in the bricks and mortar. 

There are successions of terraces and tanks of water 
with ducks and geese upon them, and huildinga round 
the topmost teiTace intended to he imposing. The seraidar 
is expecting the Amiu-es- Sultan (the Prime Minister) and 
his train, who will occupy rather a fine though tawdry 
" suite of apartments " ; but tbongh they were at onr 
service, I prefer the comparative cosiness of a small, dark, 
damp room, though with a very smoky chimney, as 1 
find to my cost. 

Uritisk Lfjaiion, Tihran, Feb. S6. — The night was 
very cold, and the reveille specially unwelcome in the 
morning. The people were more than usually vague 
about the length of the march, some giving the distance 
at twenty-five miles, and others making it as high aa 
thirty-eight. As we did a good deal of galloping and yet 
took more than seven hours, I suppose it may be about 
-twenty-eight. Fortunately we could desert the caravan, 
the caravanserais are furnished and supply tea and 
jad. The baggage mules took ten hours for the march. 
The day wa? dry and sunny, and the scenery, if such 
I tract of hideousness can be called scenery, was at its 
Its one charm lies in the solitude and freedom of 
I vast unpeopled waste. 

The " made road " degenerates for the most part into 

track " made " truly, but rather by the passage of 

'thousands of animals during a long course of ages than 

by men's hands. This track winds among low ranges of 

sand and mud hilla, through the " Pass of the Angel of 

. Death," crosses salt and muddy streams, gravelly stretches, 

tad quagmires of mud and tenacious clay, passing through 

I country on the whole inconceivably hideous, unfinished, 




ITS JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LEinaim 

frothy, and saturated with salt — tbe great l>rown deiot 
which extends from Tthran to Quetta in Beloochistu, 

a distance of 2000 miles. 

On a siinuy slope we met tlie Prime Miuister with ■ 
coDsidorable train of horsemen. He stopped and spoke 
with extreme courtesy, through an interpreter, for, unliVe 
most Persians of the higher class, he does not speak 
French. He said we had been for some time expected at 
Tihran, and that great fears were entertained for oot 
safety, which we had heard at KAm. He is a pleasaIl^ 
looking man with a rather European expression, not more 
than thirty-two or thirty-three, and in spite of intrignes 
and detractors has managed to keep his hazardous position 
for some years. His mother was lately buried at Kflin, 
and he was going thither on pilgrimage. After the usual 
compliments he bowed his farewells, and the gay pro- 
cession with ita brilliant trappings and prancing hoises 
flashed by. The social standing of a Persian is evidenced 
by the size of his retinue, and the first of the Shali's 
subjecta must have been attended by fully forty well- 
mounted men, besides a number of servants who were 
riding with his baggage animals. 

Shortly aft«r passing him a turn among the hiUs 
I brought the revelation through snow clouds of the magni- 
I ficent snow-covered chain of the Elburz mountains, with 
\ the huge cone of Demavend, their monarch, 1 8,600 feet ' in 
f height, towering high above them, gleaming sunlit above tbe 
] lower cloud-maases. Swampy water -courses, a fordabte 
I river crossed by a broad bridge of five arches, more low 
L'lliUs, more rolling desert, then a plain of mud irrigated 
IIbt cultivation, difficult ground for the horses, the ruins 
■iqI ft deserted village important enough to have possessed 
> imcimzadas, and then we reached the Husseiuabad, 
b hftfl very good guest-rooms, with mirrors on the walls. 
' The sltitnde of DcmaTeod is rariousty alAted. 



TTBR Tin A SEA OF MUD 177 

This caraTBnserai is only one march from Tihran, and 
it seemed as if all difficulties were over. Abbas Khan 
•nd the sick orderly were sent on early, with a baggage 
XDule loaded with evening dress and other necessities 
of civihsation; the caravan was to follow at leisure, and 
U and I started at ten, without attendants, expect- 
ing to reach Tihran early in the afternoon. 

It is si."c days since that terrible ride of ten hours 
1 a half, and my bones ache as I recall it. I never 
wish to mount a horse again. It had been a very cold 
night, and for some time after we started it was doubtful 
srhetlier snow or rain would gain the day, but after an 
hour of wet snow it decided on rain, and there was a 
Steady downpour all day. The Elburz range, which the 
day before had looked so magnificent when fifty miles 
ofl", was blotted out This was a great disappointment 

An ascent of low, blackish volcanic liills is made by 
a broad road of gray gravel, which a torrent has at some 
time frequented. Thorns and thistles grow there, and 
skeletons of animals abound. Everything is grira and 
gray. From these hills we descended into the Kavir, a 
rolling expanse of friable soil, stoneless, strongly impreg- 
nated with salt, but only needing sufficient water to wash 
I the salt out of it and to irrigate it to become as proMc as 
it is now barren. 
It is now a sea of mud crossed by a broad road in- 
dicated by dykes, that never-to-be-forgotten mud growing 
deeper as the day wore on. Hour after hour we plunged 
tiirough it, sometimes trying the road, and on finding 
it impassable scrambling through the ditches and over 
the dykes to the plain, which after offering firmer foot- 
hold for a time became such a " slough of despond " that 
1 to scramble back to the road, and so on, hour after 
I liour, meeting nothing but one ghastly caravan of corpses, 
I sad wretched asses falling in the mud. 
VOL. I 





178 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter vai" 

At mid-day, scrambling up a gravel hill with a little 
wormwood upou it, and turning my back to the heavy 
i"aia, I ate a. lunch of dates and ginger, inauflicient sus- 
tenance for such fatigue. On again ! — -the rain pouring 
the mud deepening, my spine in severe pain. We turned 
off to a caravanserai, mostly a heap of ruins, the rooft 
having given way under the weight of the snow, and then 
I sought some relief from pain by lying down for the short 
thirty minutes which could be spared in the seraidat'i 
damp room. It was then growing late in the aftemooQ, 
all landmarks had disappeared in a bi'ooding mist, there 
were no habitations, and no human beings of whom M 
ask the way. 

The pain returned severely as Boon as I mounted, and 
increased till it became hardly bearable. Ceaseless mud, 
ceaseless heavy rain, a plain of mud, no refuge from mud 
and water, attempts to gallop were made with the risk of 

the horses falling into holes and even kanaats. M 

rode in front. Not a word was spoken, A gleaming 
dome, with minai'ets and wood, appeared below the Shim- 
ran liills. Unluckily, where two roads met one looked 
impassable and we took the other, which, though it 
eventually took us to Tihran, was a ditour of some 
miles. 

In the evening, when I was hoping that Tihran was 
at hand, we reached the town of Shah Abdul Azim, built 
among the ruins of an ancient city, either Ehages or Rhei 
The gilded dome is tbe shrine of Abdul Azim, and is a 
great place of pilgrimage of the picnic order from Tihrao. 
The one railroad of Persia runs from the capital to this 
town. As we floundered in darkness along wide roads 
planted with trees, there was the incongruity of a railway 
whistle, and with deep breathing and much glare an 
engine with some carriages passed near the load, taking 
away with its harsh Western noises that glorious freedom 



trrTERTm RIDING AGAINST TIME 179 

ot the desert ■which outveighs all the hardship even of a 
winter joiimey. 

It was several miles from thence to the gate of Tihran. 
It was nearly pitch dark when we got out of Abdul Azim 
and the rain atill fell heavily. In tliat thick rainy dark- 
ness no houses were visible, even if they exist, there 
were no passengers on foot or on horseback, it was a 
" darkness whiclj might be felt." 

There was a causeway which gave foothold below the 
mud, but it was full of holes and broken culverts, deep 
in slime, and seemed to have water on each side not 
particular in keeping within bounds. It was necessary to 
get on, lest the city gates should be shut, and by lifting 
and spurring the jaded horses they were induced to trot 
and canter along that road of pitfalls. I have had many 
a severe ride in travelling, but never anything equal to 
that last two hours. The severe pain and want of food 
made me so faint that I was obliged to hold on to 
the saddle. I kept my tired horse up, but each flounder 
I thought would be his last. There was no guidance 
hut an occasional flash from the hoots of the horse in 
front, and the word " spur " ringing through the darkness. 

After an hour of riding in this desperate fashion 
we got into water, and among such dangerous holes 
that from that point we were obliged to walk our 
horses, who though they were half dead still feebly re- 
sponded to bit and spur. We reached the dimly-lighted 
city gate just as half of it was shut, and found Abbas 
Khan waiting there. The caravan with the other sick 
men never reached Tihran till late the next morning. 

At the gate we learned that it was two miles farther 
to the British Legation, and that there was no way for 
me to get there but on horseback. One lives through a 
good deal, but I all but succumbed to the pain and faint- 
ness. Inside the gate there was an open sea of hquid mud, 



1 



180 JOURNEYS IN PEESU letter vin 

across wliicli, for a timej certain lights shed their broken 
reflections. There was a railway shriek, and tJien the 
appearance of a station with shunting operations vaguely 
seen in a v^ue glare. 

Then a tramway track buried under several inches o[ 
slush came down a slope, and crowded tramway cars with 
great single lamps came down the narrow road on 
horses too tired to be frightened, and almost too tired to 
get out of tlie way. Then came a street of mean honses 
and meaner shops lighted with kerosene lamps, a region 
like the slums of a new American city, with en/it! and 
saloons, barbers' shops, and European enormities such as 
gazogenes and effervescing waters in several windows. 
Later, there were frequent foot passengers preceded by 
ser\-ant3 carrying huge waxed cambric lanterns of a 
Chinese shape, then a square with barracks and artillery, 
a causewayed road dimly lit, then darkness and heavier 
rain and worse mud, through which the strange spectacle 
of a carriage and pair incongruously flashed. 

By that time even the courage and stamina of an 
Arab horse could hardly keep mine on his legs, and witlj 
a swimming head and dazed brain I could hardly guide 
him, as I had done from the gate chiefly by the wan 
gleam of Abbas Khan's pale horse ; and expecting to fall 
ofif every minute, I responded more and more feebly and 
dubiously to the question frequently repeated out of the 
darkness, " Are you surviving ? " 

Just as endurance was on the point of giving way, we 
turned from the road through a large gateway into the 
extensive grounds wliich surround the British Legation, 
a lai^'e building forming three sides of a quadrangle, 
with a line stone staircase leading up to the central door. 
Kwry window was lighted, light streamed from the open 
tkmv, splashed carriages were dashing up and setting 
4vnt people in evening dress, there were crowds of 



iBiTEH vni THE JOUENEyS END IBI 

servants about, and it Hashed on my dazed senses that 
it must be after eight, and that there was a dinner party ! 
Arriving from the mud of the Kavir and the slush of 
the streets, after Tiding ten hours in ceaseless rain on 
a worn-out horse; caked with mud from head to foot, 
dripping, exhausted, nearly blind from fatigue, freah from 
mud hovela and the congenial barbarism of the desert, 
and with the rags and travel-stains of a winter journey 
of forty-six days upon me, light and festivity were over- 
whelming. 

Alighting at a side door, scarcely able to stand, I sat 
down in a long corridor, and heard from an English steward 
tiiat " dinner is waiting." His voice sotmded very far off, 
and the once famUiar announcement came like a memory 
out of the remote past. Presently a gentleman appeared 
in evening dress, wearing a star, which conveyed to my faat- 
failing senses that it was Sir H. Drammond Wolff. It 
was true that there was a large dinner party, and among the 
guests the Minister with thoughtful kindness had invited 
all to whom I had letters of introduction. But it was 
no longer possible to make any eflbrt, and I was taken up 
to a room in which the comforts of English civilisation 
at first made no impression upon me, and removing only 
tihe mackintosh cloak, weighted with mud, which had 
served me so well, I lay down on the hearthrug before a 
great coal fire till four o'clock the next morning. And " so 
"(he tale ended," and the winter journey with its tremen- 
^dooa hardships and tmbounded mercies was safely accom- 
;-plished.i I. L. B. 

' I remained for three wseke as Sir H. Drummond Wolirs guest at th« 
Brittsh Legatiou, receiving liom bim thnt courtoay and considerate kind- 
ueu wbicli all who hare been aniler bia roof delight to recall. I aaw 
mnch of what 19 worth aesing in Tihran, including the Shah and aeveml 
of the Puraiin atatesinan, and left the Legation with every help that 
eooM be given for a long and difticult journey into th« mouutaitia 
LuTiatan. 




Elp that 1 

taina of J 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



NOTES ON TIHRAN' 



Horm 

4 



I^It is a matter of individual taste, but few cities in the 
Eaat interest me in which national characteristics in 
architecture, costume, eustoms, and ways generally ais 
either being obhterated or are undergoing a partial 
remodelling on Western lines. An Eastern city pure aad 
simple, such as Canton, Niigata, or Baghdad, even with 
certain drawbacks, forms a harmonious whole gratiiying 
to the eye and to a certain sense of fitness ; while Cairo, 
Tokio, Lahore, and I will now add Tihran, produce the 
effect of a scries of concussions. 

Tihran — set down on a plain, a scorched desert, the 
sublimity of which is interfered with by kanaats or under- 
ground watercourses with their gravel mounds and ruin- 
ous shafts— has few elements of beauty or grandeur 
in its situation, even though " the triumphant barbarism 
of the desert " sweeps up to its gates, and the scored and 
channelled Shimran range, backed by the magnificent 
peak, or rather cone, of Demavend, runs to the north-east 
of the city within only ten miles of its walls. 

The winter with its snow and slush disappeared 
abruptly two days after I reached Tihran, and as abruptly 
ijixae the spring — a too transient enjoyment — and in a few 
^ys to brownness and barrenness succeeded a tender 

I ATolume of travels in Persia would scarcely be complete without aome 
U DotiM of the nortlierc cupital ; but for detailed modern accounts of 
Miwdn iliould consult various other books, especially Dr. WiUa' fnd 
In's, if he hu not already done no. 



TIBR4K ASPECTS OF TIHRAN 183 

mist of green over the trees in the watered ganJens, 
rapidly thickening into dark leafage in which the bulhul 
sang, and nature helped by art spread a carpet of violets 
and irises over the brown earth. But all of verdure and 
greenery that there is lies within the city walla. Out- 
side is the unconquerable desert, rolling in endless shades 
of buff and brown up to the Eiburz range, and elsewhere 
to the far horizon. 

Situated in the most depressed part of an uninteresting 
waste in Lat. 35° 40' N. and Long. 51° 25' K, 
and at an altitude of 3800 feet, the climate is one 
of extremes, the summer extreme being the most severe. 
For some weeks the heat is nearly insupportable, and the 
L^ations, and all of the four hundred Europeans who are 
not bound to the city by a fate which they execrate, 
betake themselves to "yailaks." or summer quarters on 
the slopes of the adjacent mountains. 

Entering Tihran in the darkness, it was not till I saw 
it coming back from Gulahek, the " yailak " of the British 
Legation, when the mud was drying up and the willows 
were in their fii-st young green, that I formed any definite 
idea of its aspect, which ia undeniably mean, and presents 
no evidences of antiquity ; indeed, it has no right to present 
any, for as a capital it only came into existence a century 
ago, with the first king of the present Kajar dynasty. 
The walls are said to be eleven miles in circuit, and give 
the impression of being much too large, so many are the 
vacant spaces within them. They consist chiefly of a 
broad ditch, and a bigli sloping rampart without guns. 
Twelve well-built domed gateways give acceas to the city. 
These are decorated with glazed tiles of bright colours 
and somewhat gaudy patterns and designs, representing 
genii, lions, and combats of mythical heroes. 

Above the wall are seen tree-tops, some tile-covered 
minarets, the domes of two mosques, and the iron 



-eovereu 

a ribs of I 



184 JOURNEVS IN PERSIA 

a roofless theatre in the Shah'a garden, in which under a 
temporary awniDg the Taxieh or Passion Play (elsewhere 
referred to) is acted once a year in presence of the Shah 
and several thousand spectators. 

Entering by a gateway over which is depicted a scese 
in the life of Euatem, the Achilles of Persia, or by the 
Sheikh Abdul Azim gate, where the custom-house is 
established and through which all caravans of goods 
must reach Tihran, the magnitude of the untidy vacant 
spaces, and the shabby mud hovels which fringe them, 
create an unfavourable impression. Then there are the 
inevitable ruinousuess, the alleys with broken gutters in 
the centre, the pools of slime or the heaps of dust accord- 
ing to the weather, and the general shabbiness of blank 
walls of sun-dried bricks which give one the impression, 
I believe an unjust one, of decay and retrogression. I 
never went through those mean outskirts of Tihian 
which are withiu the city walls without being reminded 
of a man in shabby clothes preposterously too big for him. 

The population is variously estimated at from 60,000 
to 160,000 souls. It varies considerably with the 
presence or absence of the Court The streets and 
bazars are usually well filled with people, and I did not 
see many beggars or evidences of extreme poverty, even 
in the Jewish quarter. On the whole it impressed me 
as a bustling place, but the bustle is not picturesque. It 
is framed in mean surroundings, and there is little variety 
in costume, and much sober if not sad colouring. 

In " old " Tihran the alleys are crooked, dirty, and 
narrow, and the bazars chietly frequented by the poor are 
very mean and untidy ; but the better bazars, whether 
built as some are, round small domed open spaces, or in 
3 roofed with low brick domes, are decidedly handsome, 

I an light, wide, clean, and in every way adapted for 
I of buying and selling. European women. 



HORSE FURNITURE 185 

even though unattended, can walk through tliem quite 
freely without being mobbed or stared at. 

The best liazars are piled with foreign merchandise, to 
the apparent exclusion of native goods, which, if they are 
of the better quality, must be searched for in out-of-the-way 
corners. Indeed, if people want fine carpets, curios, rich 
embroideries, inlaid arms, and Kerman stuffs, they must 
resort to the itinerant dealers, who gauge the tastes and 
purchasing powers of every European resident and visitor, 
and who may be seen at all hours gliding in a sort of 
aurreptitious fashion round the Legation compounds, 
conveying their beautiful temptations on donkeys' backs. 

It is chiefly in the fine lofty saddlery bazar and some 
small bazars that native manufactures are en Evidence. 
All travelling is on horseback, and the Persian, though 
sober in the colours of his costly clothing, loves crimson 
and gold in leather and cloth, embroidered housings and 
lieadstalls, and gorgeous saddle-covers for his horse. The 
usual saddle is of plain wood, very high before and behind, 
and without stuflSng. A thick soft Tiamad or piece of 
felt covers the horse's back, and over this are placed two 
or more saddle-cloths covered with a very showy and 
often highly ornamental cover, with tasselled ends, 
embroidered in gold and silks and occasionally witli real 
gems. The saddle itaelf is smoothly covered with a soft 
ornamental cover made to fit it, and the crupper, breast- 
plate, and headstall are frequently of crimson leather 
embroidered in gold, or stitched ingeniously with turquoise 
beads. 

The mule, whether the pacing aaddle-raule worth 
from £60 to £80, much affected by rich Persians in 
Tihran, or the humbler beast of burden, is not foi^otteu by 
the traders in the great saddleiy bazar. Kich charvadars 
take great pride in the " outfit " of their mules, and do 
not grudge twenty tumans upon it. Hence are to be seen 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

elaborate headstalls, breastplates, and straps for bells, of 

showy embroidery, and leather stitched completely over 
with turquoise beads and cowries — the latter a favourite 
adornment — while cowried headstalls are also ornamented 
■with rows of woollen tassels dyed with beautiful vegetable 
dyes. In this bazar too are found l-hurjins — the great 
leather or carpet saddle-bogs without which it is incon- 
venient to travel— small leather portmanteaus for strap- 
ping behind the saddles of those who travel chapar, i.e. post, 
— cylindrical cases over two feet long which are attached 
in front of the saddle — decorated holstei-s, the multifarioiiB 
gear required for the travelling pipe- bearers, the deep leather 
belts which are worn by chapar riders, the leathern water- 
bottles which are slung on the saddles, the courier bags, 
and a number of other articles of necessity or luxury 
which are regarded as essential by the Persian traveller. 

In most of the bazars the shops are packed to the 
ceiling with foreign goods. It looks as if there were 
cottons and woollen cloth for the clothing of all Persia. 
I saw scarcely any rough woollen goods or shoddy. The 
Persian wears superfine, smooth, costly clotli, chiefly black 
and fawn, stiff iu texture, and with a dull shine upon 
it. The best comes exclusively from Austria, a slightly 
inferior quahty from Germany, and such cloth fabrics 
as are worn by Europeans from England and Kussia. 

The European cottons, which are slowly but surely 
displacing the heavy durable native goods, either undyed, 
or dyed at Isfahan with madder, saffron, and indigo, are 
of colours and patterns suited to native taste, white and 
canary yellow designs on a red ground predominating, and 
are both of Russian and EngHsh make, and the rivalry 
which extends from the Indian frontier, through Central 
Asia, is at fever-heat in the cotton bazars of Tihran. It 
does not appear that at present either side can claim the 
advantage. 




EUROPEAN GOODS 187 

In a search for writing paper, thread, tapes, and what 
are known as " small warea," I never saw anything that 
was not Russian. The cheap tilings, such as oil lampa, 
samovars, coarae coloured prints of the Eussian Imperial 
family in tawdry frames, lacquered tin hoxea, fitted work- 
boxes, glass teacups, china tea-pots, tawdry lacquered 
trays, glass brooches, bead necklaces, looking-glasses, and 
a number of other things which are coming into use at 
least in the south-west and the western portions of the 
I Empire, are almost exclusively Russian, as is natural, for 
I the low price at wliich they are sold would leave no mar- 
gin of profit on such imports from a more distant country. 
A stroll through the Tihran bazars shows the observer 
something of the extent and rapidity with which Europe 
ia raining the artistic taste of Asia. Masses of rubbish, 
atrocious ill colouring and hideous in form, the principle 
of shoddy carried into all articles along with the quint- 
essence of vulgarity which is pretence, goods of nominal 
utility which will not stand a week's wear, the refuse of 
European markets— in art Philistinism, in most else 
" Brummagem," without a quality of beauty or solidity to 
recommend them — are training the tastes and changing 
the habits of the people. 

One squarish bazar, much resorted to for glass and 
hardware and what the Americans call " assorted notions," 
is crammed with Austrian glass, kerosene lamps of all 
sizes in hundreds, chandeliers, etc. The amount ot glass 
exhibited there for sale is extraordinary, and not less 
remarkable is the glut of cheap hardware and worthless 
byeuUrie. It is the Lowtber Ai-cade put down in Tihran. 
I Kerosene and candles may be called a Russian mono- 
t poly, and Russia has completely driven French sugar from 
the markets. In the foreign town, as it may be called,, 
there are two or three French shops, an American shop 
for " notions," and a German chemist. 




188 JOURNEYS IN PERSU Km 

The European quarter is in the northern part of Tihran, 
and is close to vacant and airy spaces. There are 
the Turkish Embassy, and the Legations of England, 
France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Austria, and 
America, and a Dutch Cousulate-General, each with its 
Persian gholams wlio perform escort duty. Their large 
and shady compounds, brightened by their national flags, 
and the stir and circumstance which surround them, srs 
among the features of the city. The finest of all the 
Legation enclosures is that of England, which is beautifully 
wooded and watered. The reception-rooms and hall of the 
Minister's residence are very handsome, and a Byzantine 
clock tower gives the building a striking air of distinction. 
The grounds contain several detached houses, occupied by 
the secretaries and others. 

A very distinct part of the foreign quarter is that 
occupied by the large and handsome buildings of the 
American Presbyterian Mission, which consist of a church 
occupied at stated hours by a congregation of the Eefonned 
Armenian Church, and in which in the afternoons o( 
Sundays Dr. Potter, the senior missionary, reads the 
English Liturgy and preaches an English sermon for the 
benefit of the English-speaking residents, very fine board- 
ing-schools for Anuenian girls and boys, and the houses of 
the missionaries—three clerical, one medical, and several 
ladies, one of whom is an M,D. 

Outside this fine enclosure is a Medical Alissionarv 
Dispensary, and last year, in a good situation at a con- 
siderable distance, a very fine medical missionary hospital 
was completed. The boys' and girls' schools are of a very 
high class. To my thinking the pupils are too much 
Europeauised in dress and habits; but I understand thot 
this is at the desire of the Armenian parents. The 
■ missionaries are not allowed to receive Moslem pupils ; 
but besides Armenians they educate Jewish youths, some 



TmsAS MODEEN IMPROVEMENTS 189 

of whom faave become Christians, and a few Guebres or 
ZoroastriaDS. 

I do not think that the capital is a hopeful place for 
missionary work. The presence of Europeans of various 
creeds and nationaUtiea complicates matters, and the fine, 
perhaps too fine, mission buildings in proximity to the 
houses of wealthy foreigners are at so great a distance 
from the Moslem and Jewish quarters, that persons who 
might desire to make inquiries concerning the Christian 
faith must he deterred both by the space to be traversed 
and the conspicuousness of visiting a mission compoimd 
in such a position. The members of the mission church 
last year were altogether Armenians. The education and 
training given in the schools are admirable. 

Indications of the changes which we consider improve- 
ments abound in Tihran. There are many roads accessible 
to wheeled vehicles. There are hackney carriages. A 
tramway carrying thousands of passengers weekly has 
been laid down from the Maidan or central square to one 
of the southern gates. There are real streets paved with 
cobble stones, and bordered with definite sidewalks, young 
trees, and shops. There is a railroad about four miles 
long, from the city to the village of Sheikh Abdul Azim. 
There are lamp-posts and fittings, though the light is 
somewhat of a failure. There is an organised city police, 
in smart black uniforms with violet facings, under the 
command of Count Monteforte, an Italian. Soldiers 
in Europeanised uniforms abound, some of them, the 
" Persian Cossacks," in full Russian uniforms ; and military 
bands instructed by a French baudinaster play European 
airs, not always easily recognisable, for the pleasure of 
the polyglot public. 

All ordinary business can be transacted at the 
Imperial Bank, which, having acquired the branches and 
business of the New Oriental Bank, bids fair to reign 



180 JOURNEYS IN PEHSU notes 

supreme in the commercial world of Persia, the Shah, 
who has hitherto kept his hoards under his own eye, 
having set an example of confidence by becoming a 



European tailors, dressmakers, and milliners render & 
resort to Europe unnecessary. There are at least two 
hotels where a European may exist. About five hundred 
European carriages, many of them Russian, with showy 
Bussian horses harnessed A la Jiiisse, dash about the 
streets with little regard to pedestrians, though an 
accident, if a European were the offender, might lead to a 
riot. The carriages of the many Legations are recognis- 
able by their outriders, handsomely-dressed gJwlams. 

But even the European quarter and its newish road, 
on which are many of the Legations, some of the foreign 
shops, and the fine compound and handsome buildings of 
the Imperial Bank, has a Persian admixture. Some of 
the stately houses of official and rich Persians are there, 
easily recognisable by their low closed gateways and 
general air of seclusion. Many of these possess exquisite 
gardens, with fountains and tanks, and all the arrange- 
ments for the out-of-doors life which Persians lova In 
the early spring afternoons the great sight of the road 
outside the Britisli Legation is the crowd of equestrians, 
or rather of the horses they ride. However much the 
style of street, furniture, tastes, art, and costume have 
been influenced by Europe, fortunately for picturesque 
effect the Persian, even in the capital, retains the Persian 
saddle and equipments. 

From later observation I am inclined to think very 
highly of the hardiness and stamina of the Persian horse, 
though at the time of my visit to Tihran I doubted both. 
Such showy, magnificent-looking animals, broken to a 
carriage which shows them to the best advantage, fine- 
legged, though not at the expense of strength, small-eared. 



J 



TtHBAM PERSIAN HORSES 191 

small-mouthed, with flowing wavy manes, " necks clothed 
with thunder," dilated nostrils showing tlie carmine 
interior, and a look of scorn and high breeding, I never 
saw elsewhere. The tail, which in obedience to fashion 
we mutilate aiid abridge, is allowed in Persia its full 
development, and except in the case of the Shah's white 
horses, wlien it is dyed magenta, is perfectly beautiful, 
held far from the body like a flag. The arclied neck, 
haughty bearing, and easy handling which Easterns love 
are given by very sharp bits ; and a crowd of these 
beautiful animals pawing the ground, prancing, caracoling, 
walking with a gait as though the earth were too vulgar 
for their touch, or flaslung past at a gallop, all groomed to 
perfection and superbly caparisoned, ridden by men who 
know how to ride, and who are in sympathy with their 
• animals, is one of the fascinations of Tihran. 

Creeping along by the side-walk is often seen a 
handsome pacing saddle-mule, or large white ass, nearly 
always led, carrying a Persian lady attended by servants — 
a shapeless black bundle, with what one supposes to be 
the outline of a hand clutching the enshrouding black 
silk sheet tightly over her latticed white mask : so 
completely enveloped that only a yellow shoe without a 
heel, and a glimpse of a violet trouser can be seen above 
the short stirrups. 

Another piece of Orientalism unaffected by Western 
influence is the music performed daily at sunset in the 
upper stories of some of the Iiighly-deco rated tiled gateways 
wliich lead into and out of the principal squares. 
This is evoked from drums, fifes, cymbals, and huge 
horns, and as the latter overpower all the former, the 
effect is much like that of the braying of the colossal 
silver horns from the roofs of the Tibetan lamasEvais. 
Many people suppose that this daily homage to the 
setting sun is a relic of the ancient fire or sun worship. 




19S JOURNEYS IN PERSIA notes 

Two great squares, one of them with a tank in llie 
middle with a big gun at each comer, artillery barracks 
on three sides, and a number of smooth-bore twenty-fonr- 
poundcir guns on the fourth, are among the features of 
Tihran. In thia great Maidan there are always soldiers 
in multil'arious uniforms lounging, people waiting for the 
tram-cars, and Royal fcwtmen, whose grotesque costumes 
border on the ridiculous. Tliey are indeed a fitting 
accompaniment to the Royal horses with their mc^enta tails 
and spots, for they wear red coats with ballet-dancer 
skirts and green facings, green knee-breeches, white 
stockings, and tall stiff erections resembling a fool's cap 
on tlic head, topped by crests su^estive of nothing but 
a cock's comb. 

A gateway much ornamented leads from the artillerv 
square, or Maidon Topkfmnch, by a short road shaded 
with trees to the Citadel or Ark, wliich is an immense 
enclosure, rather mangy and unprepossessing in its 
exterior, which contains the palace of the Shab, tbe 
arsenal, certain public offices, the royal colleges, elfl. 
Over the gateway floats rather grandly the Koyol 
standard, bearing the Lion and the Sun in yellow on a 
green ground. 

The Shah's palace is very magnificent, and the shady 
gardens, beautifully kept, with their fount^ns and tanlu 
of pale blue tiles, through which clear water constantly 
moves, are worthy of a Koyal residence. From the out- 
side above the high wall the chief feature is a very 
lofty pavilion, brilliantly and elaborately painted, with 
walls inclining inwards, and culminating in two high 
towers. This striking structure contains the andarun or 
haram of the sovereign and his private apartments 

This hasty sketch exhausts those features of Tihran 
J which naturally arrest the stranger's attention. There is 
\ BO Splendour about it externally, hut there is splendour 




THE SITUATION ( 

within it, and possibly few European residences can 
exceed in taste and magnificeDce the palaces of the 
Minister of Justice (the Maschir-u-Dvwlek), the Naih-es- 
Sultan, the Zil-es-Sullan, and a few others, though I 
regret that much of the furniture has been imported 
from Europe, as it vexes the eye more or less with 
its incongruity of form and colouring. The current of 
European intluence, which ia affecting externals in Tihran, 
is not likely now to be stemmed. Eastern civilisation is 
doomed, and the transition period is not beautiful, what- 
ever the outcome may be. 

So much for what ia within the walla. That which 
is outside deserves a passing notice as the environment of 
the capital The sole grandeur of the situation liea in 
the near neighbourhood of the Shiniraii mountains — a 
huge wall, white or brown according to the season, with 
Bome irrigated planting near its base, which ia spotted 
with villages and the t/ailaks not only of the numerous 
Legations but of rich Europeans and Persians. Other- 
wise the tameless barbarism of a desert, which man has 
slashed, tunnelled, delved, and heaped, lies outside the 
city walls, deformed by the long lines of kanaais — -some 
dioked, others still serviceable — by which the city is 
supplied with water from the mountains, their shafts 
lustrating the Scriptural expression " ruinous heaps." 

the glare of the summer sun, with the mercury 
'Auiging from 95' to 110° in the shade, and with the 
heated atmosphere quivering over the burning earth, 
these wastes are abandoned to carcasses and the vultures 
which fatten on them, and travelhng is done at night, 
when a breeze from the Shimran range sends the 
ithermometer down from 10° to 15°, 

Curving to the south-west of Tihran, the mountains 
end in a bare ridge, around the base of which, according 
;to many arch.-Eologist3, lie vestiges of the ancient city of 

VOL. I 



s 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA notes 

, known in later daya as Rliei. A tomb of 
brick with augular surfaces, sacred to the memory 
of an ancient and romantic attachment, remains of forti- 
fications, and the Parsee cemetery on a ledge overlook- 
ing these remains, break the monotony of the waste in 
that direction. 

Tliis cemetery, or " Tower of Silence," a white splash 
OH the brown hillside, is visible from afar. Tlie 
truncated cones which in many places mark seats of the 
ancient Zoroastrian worship have been mentioned here 
and there, but it is only in Tihran and Yezd that the 
descendants of the ancient fire- worshippers are found in 
such numbers as to be able to give prominence to their 
ancient rites of sepulture. Probably throughout Persia 
their number does not exceed 8000. Their head resides 
in Tihran. They bear a good character for uprightness, 
and except in Yezd, where they weave rich stuffs, tliey 
are chietly agriculturists. They worship firelight aud tie 
sun on the principles symbolised by both, they never use 
tobacco, aud it is impolite to smoke in their presence 
because of the sacredness of fire. 

Their belief has been, and is, that to bury the dead in 
the earth is to pollute it ; and one among the reasons of 
the persecution of the early Christiana by the Zoroastrians 
was their abhorrence of the desecration of the ground 
produced by the modes of Christian burial. 

This " Tower of Silence " near Tihran is a large ronnd 
edifice of whitewashed mud and stone. On the top of it, 
a few feet below the circular parapet, the dead are laid 
to be devoured by birds and consumed by exixraure to 
the elements. The destiny of the spirit is supposed to 
be indicated by the eye which is first devoured by the 
fowls of the air, the tight eye signifying bliss. 

In a northern direction, to which the eye always 
turns to be reft'eshed by the purity of the icy cone of 



AS THE SLOPES OF SHIMRAN 105 

Demavend, or to watch the rosy light deepeniDg into 
purple ou the heights of Shiraran, are palaces and countrj' 
Beats in numbers, with a mass of irrigated plantations 
extending for twenty miles, from Vauek on the east to 
Kamaranieh on the west. These are reached by passing 
through the Shimran gate, the most beautiful of the outer 
gates, tiled all over with yellow, black, blue, and green 
tiles in conventional designs, and with an immense 
coloured mosaic over the gateway representing Rustem, 
Persia's great mytliical hero, conquering some of his 



On the slopes of the hills are palaces and hunt- 
ing seats of the Shah, beginning with the imposing 
mass of the Ka3r-i-Kajar, on a low height, surrounded by 
majestic groves, in which are enormous tanks. Palaces 
End hunting seats of ministers and wealthy men succeed 
each other rapidly, a perfect seclusion having been 
obtained for each by the rapid growth of poplars and 
planes, each dwelUng carrying out iu its very marked 
individuality a deference to Persian custom, and each if 
possible using rimning water as a means of decoration. 
Many of these palaces are princely, and realise some of 
the descriptions in the Arabian Nights, with the beauty 
of their decorated architecture, the deep shade of their 
]&rge demesnes, the cool plash of falling water, the songs 
■of nightiogales, and the scent of roses — sensuous Paradises 
'in which the Persian finds the summer all too short. 

Beyond this enchanting region, and much higher up 
on the mountain slopes, are the hunting grounds of the 
Shah and his sons, well stocked with game and rigidly 
preserved ; for the Shah is a keen sportsman, and is said 
to prefer a free hfe under canvas and the pleasures of 
the chase to the splendid conventionalities of the Court 
Tihran. 

The two roads and the many tracks which centre ui the 



186 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA sotes 

capital after scoring tlie desert for many miles around it, 
are a feature of the landscape not to be overlogked. the 
Meshed, Resht, Bushire, and Tabriz roads being the most 
important, except the route from Baghdad by Kinnanahfih 
and Hamadan, which in summer can be travelled by 
caravans in twenty-eight days, and by which many bulky 
articles of value, such as pianos, carriages, and valuable 
furniture, find their way to Tihran.* 

These are some of the features of the environments 
of Tihran. A traveller writing ten years hence may 
probably have to tell that the city has extended to its 
walls, that Western influence is nearly dominant in 
externals, and possibly that the concessionaires who for 
years have been hanging ahout the Palace in alternations 
of hotie and despondency have made something of tLeii 
concessions, and that goods reach the capital in another 
way than on the backs of animals. 

' Tlmro are aniy two roads, properly so called, in Persia, though in the 
lummcr M'hvel«(l carriugcB with some sssiatsnce can get from place to pim 
over Mveral of the trai-ka. Thoae two arc the road fraiu KQm to thi 
capital, formerly described, and one Irom KaBvin to the capital, both onds 
100 miles ia length. Goodu are everywhere carried on the backi of animila 
The distance between Bnshire and Tihran ia 69S tnilea. 

The summer freight per ton is £14 18 

The winUr do. 20 2 

The distance hctweeu Tihran and Kesbt on the Caspian is 211 milea 

The snmmer freight iier Ion ia £4 S* 

The winter do. 8 llj 

From the Coapian to the Persian Gulf tlie eiunmer 

freight per ton ia £18 S 3 

The winter da 23 8 4 

inclusive of some iuaigniQcant charges. 

The time taken for the transit of goods between Bushire and TOinui ii 
(orty-two days, and between Kesbt and Tihran twelve days. 

The cost per ton by rail, if taken at Indian rates, between the Golf and 
Ihe Caspian, would be £3:11; 10. 

On these llgurcs the proinoters of railn-ay enterprise in Pania build 
their hopes. 



EUROPEAN RESIDENTS 



LETTER IX 



British Legation, Tihras, March 18. 

Three weeks have passed quickly by since that terrible 
ride from Huaaeinabad. Tlie snow is vanishing from the 
Shimran hilla, the spring has come, and I am about to 
leave the unbounded kindness and hospitality of this 
house on a long and difficult journey. It is very 
pleasant to go away carrying no memories but those 
of kindness, received not only from Europeans and 
Americana, but from Persians, including the Amin-es- 
Sultau and the Muschir-u-Dowleh. 

It is impossible to bear away other than pleasant 
impressions of Tihran society. Kindness received per- 
Bonally always awaya one'a impressions of the people 
funong whom one ia thrown, and even if I had any un- 
favourable criticisms to make I should not make them. 

Society, or rather I shoidj say the European popula- 
tion, is divided into classes and knots. There are the 
eleven American missionaries, whose duties and interests 
lie apart from those of the rest of the community, the 
diplomatic body, which has a monopoly of political 
interests, the large staff of the Indo-European telegraph, 
married and single, with Colonel Wells at its head, and 
the mercantile class, in which the manager and employes 
of the Imperial Bank may be included. Outside of tliese 
recognised classes there is a shifting body of passing 
travellers, civil and military, aud would-be conccssimiairts 




198 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter a 

and adventurers, besides a few Europeans in Persian 
emplojTuent, 

From four to five liundred Europeans is a large foreign 
settlement, and it is a motley one, very various in its 
elements, " and in their idiosyncrasies, combinatione. 
rivalries, and projects is to be found an inexhaustible 
fund of local gossip," writes Mr. Curzon in one of his 
recent brilliant letters to the Times, "as well as almost 
the sole source of non-political interest." 

Outside of the diplomatic circle the relations of 
England and Russia witb eacli other and with the Sbali 
afford a topic of ceaseless interest England is just now 
considered to be in the ascendant, so far aa her diplomacy 
is concerned, but few people doubt that Russian policj- 
will eventually triumph, and that North Persia at least 
will be " absorbed." 

One or two specially pleasant things I must mentioiL 
Sir H. Bnimmond Wolft' kindly wrote asking permission 
from the Shah for me to see his Museum, i.c. his treasure- 
house, and we, thnt is the Minister, the whole party fanu 
tlie Legation, and Dr. Odling of the telegraph staff and 
Mrs. Odling, went there yesterday. There was a great 
crowd outside the Palace gates, where we were received 
by many men in scarlet. The private gardens are 
immense, and beautifully laid out, in a more formal style 
than I have hitherto seen, with straight, hard gravel walks. 
and straight avenues of trees. The effect of the clear 
running water in the immense tanks lined with blue tiles 
is most agreeable and cool. Continuous rows of orange 
trees in tubs, and beds of narcissus, irises, aud tulips, with 
a wealth of trellised roses just coming into leaf, are full of 
the promise of beauty. These great pleasure gardens 
are admirably kept I doubt whether a fallen leaf 
would not be discovered and removed in five minutes. 

The great irregular moss of the Palace buildings on 



LETTEH II THE SHAH'S TREASURE-HOUSE 199 

the garden front ia very fine, the maiigy and forlorn 
aspect being confined to the side seen by the public The 
walls are much decorated, chiefly with glazerl and coloured 
tiles geometricaUy arranged, and the general effect is 
striking. 

The " Wuseum," properly the audience chamber, and 
certainly one among the finest halls in the world, 
is approached by a broad staircase of cream-coloured 
alabaster. We were received by the Grand Vizier's two 
brothers, and were afterwards joined by himself and 
another high official. 

The decorations of this magnificent hall are in blue 
and white stucco of the hard fine kind, hardly diatinguish- 
able from marble, known as gaick, and much glass ia 
introduced in the ceiling. The proportions of the room 
are perfect The floor is of fine tiles of escjuisite 
colouring arranged as mosaic. A table is overlaid 
with beaten gold, and chairs in rows are treated in 
the same fashion. Glass cases round the room and 
on costly tables contain the fabulous treasures of the 
Shah and many of the Crown jewels. Possibly the 
accumulated splendours of pearls, diamonds, rubies, 
emeralds, sapphires, basins and vessels of solid gold, 
ancient armonr flashing with precious stones, shields 
studded with diamonds and rubies, scabbards and sword 
llilte incnisted with costly gems, helmets red with rubies, 
golden trays and vessels thick with diamonds, crowns 
of jewels, chains, ornaments (masculine solely) of every 
description, jewelled coats of mail dating back to the 
Teign of Shah Ismael, exquisite enamels of great anti- 
quity, all in a profusion not to be described, have no 
counterpart on earth. They are a dream of splendour 
not to be forgotten. 

One large case contains the different orders bestowed 
on the Shah, all blazing with diamonds, a splendid dis- 



200 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter is 

play, owiDg to the European cutting of the stones, which 
brings out their full beauty. There are maay glass cases 
from two to three feet liigh and twelve inches or more 
broad, nearly full of pearls, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, 
emeraldsf flashing forth their many-coloured light— treas- 
urea not arranged, hut piled like tea or rice. Among the 
extraordinarily lavish uses of gold and gems is a golden 
globe twenty inches in diameter, turning on a frame of Bohd 
gold. The staud and meridian are of solid gold set with 
rubies. Tlie equator and elliptic are of large diamonds. 
The countries are chiefly outlined in rubies, but PerBia 
is in diamonds. Tbe ocean is represented by emeralds. 
As if all this were not enough, huge gold coins, each 
worth thirty-three sovereigns, are heaped round its base. 

At the upper end of the hall is the Persian throne, 
Many pages would be needed for a mere catalogue of 
some of tlie innumerable treasures which give goi^eous- 
neas to this hall. Here indeed is " Oriental splendour," 
but only a part of the possessions of the Shah ; for many 
gems, including the Dar-i-uur or Sea of Light, the second 
most famous diamond in the world, are kept elsewhere in 
double-locked iron chests, and hoards of bullion saved 
from the revenues are locked up in vaults below the 
Palace. 

If such a blaze of splendour exists iu tliis shrunken, 
shrivelled, "depopulated" empire, what must have been 
the magnificence of the courts of Darius and Xerxes, into 
which were brought the treasures of almost " all the 
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"? Since 
seeing this treasure-house I think that many of the early 
descriptions of wealth, which I have regarded as Oriental 
hyperbole, were literal, and that there was a time in 
Persia, as in Judea, when " silver was not accounted oC" 
And to come down from the far off-glories of Darius, 
Xerxes, and Khosroe and the Parthian kings, there liave 



LCTTEBis THE -ASYLUM OF THE UNIVERSE" 201 

been within almost nioderu times Persian sovereigus cele- 
brated among other things for their aiiceeasful " looting " 
of foreign kingdoms — Shah Abhaa the great, and Nadir 
Shah, who scarcely two hundred years ago returned from 
the sack of Delhi with gems valued at twenty millions of 
tmr money. 

After we had seen most of what was to be seen 
the Vizier left us, and we went to the mom in which 
stands the celebrated Peacock Throne, brought by Nadir 
Shah from Delhi, and which has been valued at 
£2,500,000. This throne is a large stage, with parapets 
and a high fan back, and is reached by several steps. 
It is entirely of gold enamel, and the back is iucrusted 
vitli rubies aud diamonds. Its priceless carpet has a 
broad border, the white arabesque pattern of which is 
formed of pearls closely stitched. You will think that I 
am lapsing into Oriental exaggeration! 

While we were admiring the beautiful view of the 
gardens from the windows of this room, Hassan Ali Khan, 
better knowu as " the Nawab," suggested that we should 
retire, as the Shah is in the habit of visiting and enjoying 
hifl treasures at a later hour. However, at the foot of 
the stairs on the threshold of the vestibule stood the 
'fihab, the " King of Kings," the "Asylum of the Universe," 
.and that his presence there was not an accident was 
«hown by the fact that the Grand Vizier was with him. 

Sir Henry advanced, attended by " the Nawab," and 
presented me, lifting his hat to the king, who neither 
'^en nor when he left us made the slightest iuclinatiou 
tof his head. Hassan Ali Khan, in answer to a question, 
mentioned some of my travels, and said that with His 
Majesty's permission I wished to visit the Bakhtiari 
country.^ The kiag pushed up his big horn spectacles 

Some of the Bakhtiari khane or prinoes, with their fsmilies, are kept 
t»J the Shah as liosta^i in aud louad Tibrau Tor the lojalt; of theic 



SOS 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



and focused ]iis eyes, about which there is somethtug 
very pecuhar, upon me, with a stare which would have 
been disconcerting to a younger person, asked if I were 
going to travel alone in his domipions, and if fitting 
airangeraents bad been made ; if I had been in Pekin. 
and had visited Borneo and the Celebes ; said a few 
other things, and then without a bow turned round 
abruptly and walked down the garden with the Amin- 
es- Sultan. 

This accidental and informal presentation was a verj- 
pleasant incident. The Sliah is not what I expected 
from his various portraits. His manner (though he was 
said to be very affable on this occasion) has neither 
Eastern nor "Western polish. He is a somewhat rongli- 
looking man, well on in middle life, rather dark in 
complexion, and wearing a thick dark moustache, probably 
dyed, as is the custom. The long twisted moustache 
conceals the expression of his mouth, and the spectacles 
with thick horn rims that of his eyes. He was very 
simply dressed. Tlie diamond aigrette and sword with 
jewelled hilt witli which pictures and descriptions have 
familiarised us were absent, aud this splendid monarch, 
the heir of splendour, and the possessor of fabulous 
treasures, wore the ordinary Persian liigh cap of Astrakan 
lambskin without any ornament, close-fitting dari: 
trousers with a line of gold braid, a full -skirted coat of 
dull-coloured Kerman silk brocade, loose and open, under 
which were huddled one or more coats. A watch-cbain 
composed of large diamonds completed his costume. He 
did not wear gloves, and I noticed that his hands, though 
carefully attended to, were those of a.man used to mnscular 
exercise, strong and wiry. 

As the sovereign and his prime minister walked away, 



tribes, the conquest of tliese i>a«'errill nomads 
it might and poBsiblf will Ik. 



t being so catii]iUl« u 



THE AMIN-ES- SULTAN 



203 



it was impossible uot to speculate upon coming events: what 
will happen, for instance, when NHsr-ed-l>in, possibly the 
ablest man in the country which he rules, and probably 
the best and most patriotic ruler among Oriental despots, 
goes "tlie way of all the earth"? and ayain, whether AH 
Askar Khan, who has held his post for five years, and 
■who at thirty-two is the foremost man in Persia after 
the king, will weather the storm of intrigue whicli rages 
round his head, and resist the undermining influence of 
Russia ? 

I have had two interesting conversations with him, 
and he was good enough to propose success to my jour- 
ney at a dinner at the Legation ; and though, as he does 
not speak French, the services of an interpreter were 
necessary, he impressed me very favourably as a man 
of' thought, intelligence, and patriotism. 

He made one remark which had a certain degree of 
pathos in it. After speaking of the severe strictures and 
harsh criticisms of certain recent writers, which he said 
were very painful to Persians, he added, '• I hope if you 
write you will write kindly, and not crush the aspirations 
of my struggling country as some have done." 

This Am iu-es- Sultan, the faithful or trusted one of the 
sovereign, the Grand Vizier or Prime Minister, the second 
person in the empire, who nnites in his person at this 
time the ministries of the Treasury, the Interior, the 
Court, and Customs, is of humble antecedents, being the 
[ son of a man who was originally an inferior attendant on 
I the Shah in his hunting expeditions, and is the grandson 

an Armenian captiva Certain persons of importance 
are bent upon his overthrow, and it can only be by the 
continued favour and confidence of the Shah that he can 
sustain himself against their intrigues, combined with 
those of Itussia. 

My visit to the Palace terminated with the sight of 



JOURNEVS IN PERSIA 

another tliroiie-room opening upon the garden in whicli a 
few days hence, witii surroundings of great magnificence, 
the Shah will receive the congratulations of the diplomatic 
corps, and afterwards give a general audience to the 
people. 

This is an annual ceremony at Uie festival of No Eu£ 
when the Persian New Year begins, at the time of the 
spring solstice, and is probably a relic of the Zoroaatriau 
worship, though the modem Persians, as Mohammedans, 
allege that it is observed to celebrate the birthday of the 
Prophet's mother.' 

Some hours after the close of a splendid ceremony iu 
the audience chamber, chiefly religious, at which the Shah 
bums incense on a small brazier, he descends to the 
garden, and walking alone along an avenue of Boyal 
Guards, with the crown of the Kajars, blazing with 
jewels, carried in front of him, be seats himself on an 
alabaster throne, the foreign ministers having been re- 
ceived previously. Tliis tlirone is a large platform, with 
a very high back aud parapets of bold stone fretwork, 
supported on marble lions and other figures, and is 
ascended by three or four steps. 

The populace, which to the number of many thousands 
are admitted into the garden, see him seated on his throne, 
their absolute master, the lord of life aud death. A voice 
asks if they are content, and they say they are. A liynm 

' On the eve of tha day, the U.it of a festival often days, tbe comniOD 
people kindle rowa of bonlireB aud leap over them; utd, thaagh not on 
the aniue day, but on the night of the S6th of February, ncred in tbe 
Armenian Church aa the day of the presentation of our Lord in the temple, 
e bouGrea are lighted on the mud roofa of the Annenisns of the 
nan and Turkish citiea, and tlie younger members of the honseholdt 
uca and aing and leap through tbu Baiues. Meanwhile the MiwlBmo 
le their windows, fio that the ains which the Chtiatians are supposed 10 
W burning may not enter. Whether these " BBltano fires " are ■ rclie cT 
"le ancient fire worship or of still older rites may be o question. Amoai 
It Christians tbe oustoni is showing signs of passing away. 



LETTER ix YAHIA KHAN 205 

of congratulation is sung, a chief of the Kajar tribe offers 
the congratulations of the people of Persia, the Hakim of 
the people hands the king a jewelled lallan. which he 
smokes, and showers of gold fall among the populace. 

The British Minister is understood to be at this time 
the moat powerful foreigner in Persia ; and as we drove 
through the crowd which had assembled at the Palace 
gates, he was received with all Oriental marks of respect. 

All my intei-courae with Persians here has been 
pleasant, and if I mention one person particularly, it is 
owing to a certain interest which attaches to himself and 
his possible future, and becaiise some hours spent at 
his splendid palace were among the pleasaotest of the 
many pleasant and interesting ones which I shall here- 
after recall. 

Yahia Khan, Minister of Justice and Commerce, 
whose official title is Musc!iir-u-Dowleh, was formerly 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, but forfeited the confidence 
of the British Government in supposed connection with the 
escape of Ayoub Khan, and being suspected of Eussian 
proclivities, which he denies, lost his position. He speaks 
French perfectly, is credited with very great abilities, 
and not only has courteous and charming manners, but 
thoroughly tmderstands the customs of Europe. 

As the possessor of one of the most magnificent 
palaces in Persia, married to the Shah's sister, his son, a 
youth of eighteen, married to a daughter of the Vali-'ahd, 
the heir-apparent, and as the brother of Mirza Hussein 
Khan — for long Grand Vizier and Srpah Salar, or Com- 
mander-in-Chief, whose gorgeous mosque, scarcely finished, 
the finest mosque built in late years by any but a royal 
personage, adjoins his house, Yahia Khan is in every way 
an important personage. 

He is the fourth husband of the Shah's sister, who 

) had a tragic life and is a very accomplished woman. 



SOO JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter ii 

Her firat husband, Mirza Taghi, when Prime Minister, 
attempted reforms which would have leuded to dimioisL 
the hideoua corruption which is the haiie of Persian 
officialism, mid consequently made many enemies, who 
induced the Shah, then a young man, to depose liim. 
Worse than deposition was apprehended, and as it was 
not etiquette to murder a husband of a royal princess 
in her presence, his wife, who loved him, watched him 
night and day with ceaseless vigilance for some weeks. 
But the fatal day at last came, and a good and powerful 
man, whose loss is said to have been an irreparable one 
to Persia, was strangled by the Shah's messengers, it is 
said, in the bath. 

Her son, who has married the Shah's grand-daughter, 
is courteous like his father, but is apparently without his 
force. 

The Muschir-u-Dowleh invited me to breakfast, along 
with General Gordon and Hassan Ali Xhan. The 
deJeHner was altogether in Eurt^)ean style, except that 
in the centre of the table, among lilies and irises, a con- 
cealed fountain sent up jets of rose-water spray. S^vks 
and Dresden porcelain, the finest damask, and antique 
and exquisitely beautiful silver adorned the table. The 
cooking was French. The wines and liqneiiis, an 
innovation on Moslem tables now common, hut of recent 
date, were both French and Persian. The service was 
perfection. The host conversed both thoughtfully and 
agreeably, and expressed himself remarkably well in 
French. 

Afterwards we were invit«d to go over the palace and 
its grounds, which are remarkably beautiful, and then 
over the magnificent mosque. Shiah mosques are 
absolutely tabooed to Christians; but as this has not 
yet been used for worsliip, our entrance was not 
supposed to desecrate it. When quite finished it will 



c A PERSIAN PALACE 207 

' be one of the most magnificent buildings dedicated to 
religious use in the world, and its four tile-covered 
minarets, its vaat dome, and arches and fagades in tiled 
arabesques and conventional patterns and exquisite 
colouring, show that the Persian artist when adequately 
encouraged lias not lost his old feeling for beauty. 

Besides the moaque there is a fine building, the low 
I roof of which ja supported by innumerable columns, all 
of plain brick, resembling a crypt, which will be used 
for winter worship. lu addition, a lavish endowment 
has provided on the grounds a theological college and 
a hospital, with most, if not all, of the funds needed for 
their maintenance ; and on every part of the vast pile 
of buildings the architect haa lavished all the resources 
of his art. 

No houses are to my thinking more beautiful and 
appropriate to the climate and mode of living than those 
of the upper classes of Persians, and the same suitability 
and good taste run down through the trading classes 
till one reaches the mud hovel, coarse and un-ideal, of 
the workman and peasant. 

My memory does not serve me for the details of the 
Muachir-u-Dowleh's palace, which, though some of the 
rooms are furnished with European lounges, tables, and 
chairs in Tnarqucterie and brocade, is throughout dis- 
tinctively Persian ; but the impression produced by the 
general coup d'mil, and by the size, height, and perfect 
proportion of the rooms, galleries, staircases, and halls, 
is quite vivid. The rooms have dados of primrose- 
coloured Yezd alabaster in slabs four feet h^h by three 
broad, clouded and veined most delicately by nature. 
The banqueting hall is of immense size, and the floor 
ia covered with a dark fawn namad three-quarters of 
an inch thick, made, I understood, in one piece eighty 
feet long by fifty broad. The carpets are the moat 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

beautiful which can be turaeii out by Persian looms, ani 
that is saying a great deal. 

The roofs, fi'iezes, aud even the walls of this house, 
like those of others of its class, have a peculiarity of 
beauty essentially Persian. This is the form of ffolch 
or fine stucco-work known as ainuh karee. I saw it 
first at Bagljdad, and now at Tihran wonder that such 
beautiful and costly decoration does not commend itself 
to some of our millionaires. Arches filled with honey- 
comb ducoration, either pure white or tastefully coloured 
and gilded, are among the architectural adornments which 
the Alhambra borrowed from Persia. My impression is 
that this exquisite design was taken from snow on the 
hillsides, which is often fashioned by a strong wind into 
tlie honeycomb pattern. 

But the glory of this form of decoration reaches its 
height when, after the ijatck ceiling and cornice or deep 
frieze have been daringly moulded by the workman into 
distinct surfaces or facets, he lays on mirrors while the 
plaster is yet soft, which adhere, and even at their edges 
have scarcely the semblance of a joining. Sometimes, 
as in the new summer palace of the Shah's third son, 
the Naib-es- Sultan eh, the whole wall is decorated in 
this way; but I prefer the reception-rooms of Yahia 
Khan, in which it is only brought down a few feet. 
Immense skill and labour are required in this process 
of adornment, but it jdelds in splendour to none, flashing 
in l)ewildering light, and realising the fabled glories of the 
palaces of the Arabian Nights. One of the salons, about 
sixty feet by fifty, treated in this way is about the 
most beautiful room I ever saw. 

The Persian architect also shows great art in his win- 
dows. He masses them together, and by this means gives 
something of grandeur even to an insignificant room. 
The beauty of the designs, whether in fretwork of wood 



rBRiY THE ANDABUN 209 

or stooe, is remarkable, and the effect is enhanced by the 
filling in of the interaticea with coloured glass, usually 
amber and pale blue. So far as I have seen, the Persian 
house is never over-decorated, and however gorgeous the 
mirror-work, or involved the arrangement of arches, or 
daring the dreams in gatch ceilings and pillars, the fancy 
of the designer is always so far under control as to give 
the eye periods of rest 

Under the palace of the Muschir-u-Dowleh, as under 
many others, is a sort of glorified serdab, used in hot 
weather, partly under ground, open at each end, and 
finished throughout with marble, the roof being supported 
on a cluster of slender pillars with capitals picked out in 
gold, and the air being cooled by a fountain in a large 
marble basin. But this serdab is far eclipsed by a summer 
hall in the palace of the Shah's third son, which, as to 
walls and ceiling, is entirely composed of mirror-work, 
the floor of marble being arranged with marble settees 
round fountains whose cool plash even now is delicious. 
The large pleasure gardens which surround rich men's 
houses in the city are laid out somewhat in the old 
I^nch style of formality, and are tended with scrupulona 
«ar& 

I did not see the andantn of this or any house here, 
ovring to the difficulty about an interpreter, but it is not 
likely that the ladies are less ma^ificently lodged than 
their lords. The andarun has its own court, no one is 
allowed to open a window looking upon it, it is as 
secluded as a convent No man but the master of the 
house may enter, and when he retires thither no man 
may disturb him. To all inquirers it is a suilicient 
.answer to say that he is in the andarun. To the Shah, 
however, belongs the privilege of looking upon the un- 
veiled face of every woman in Persia. The domestic life 
of a Moslem is always shrouded in mystery, and even in 




210 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

the case of the Shah " the fierce light that beats upon a 
throne " fails to reveal to the outer world the number of 
wives and women in his andarun, which is varioualy stated 
at from sixty to one hundred and ninety. 

It ia not easy in any Eastern city to get exactly what 
one wants for a journey, especially as a European cannot 
buy in the bazars ; and the servant difficulty has been a 
great hindrance, particularly as I have a strong objection to 
the regular interpreter-servant who has been accustomed 
to travel with Europeans. 

I have now got a Persian cook with sleepy eyes, a 
portion of a. nose, and a grotesquely " hang-dog " look. 
For an interpreter and personal attendant I have an 
educated young Brahmin, for some years in British post- 
office service in the Gulf, and lately a teacher in the 
American school here. He speaks educated English, and 
is said to speak good Persian. He has never done any 
" menial " work, but is willing to do anything in order to 
get to England. He has a fi^ank, independent manner and 
"no nonsense about him." Taking him is an experiment.' 
I. L. B. 

' An experiment I never regretted. Mirza Yuauf was with me for nine 
nionthn, ond I found him faithful, truthful, and tniatworthy, vory hard- 
working, miuimising honlshipa and difficulties, nlwajs cheerful, and nitk 
au unrufflfd temper, his failings being those of a dosk-bcBd n 
planted into a life of rough oat-doorishness, 




DEPARTUEE FROM TIHRAN 



KOm, MarA tS. 

This so far is a delightful journey. All the circumstances 
are favourable. A friend who waa seuding his servants, 
horses, and baggage to Isfahan has lent me a thorough- 
bred, and with a trustworthy young soldier as my escort 
I do not trouble myself about the caravan at all, and get 
over much of the ground at a gallop. The roads have 
nearly dried up, the country looks cheerful, travellers are 
numerous, living and dead, the sun is bright but the air 
is cool and bracing, and the insects are still hybernatiug, 
Mirza Yusuf is getting into my " ways," and is very 
pleasant. I did not think that I could have liked 
Persian travelling so well, A good horse and a good 
pace make an immense difference. It is not the custom 
for European ladies to travel unattended by European 
gentlemen in Persia, but no objection to my doing so 
was made in the highest quarters, either English or 
Persian, and so far there have been no difficulties or 
annoyances. 

I left the British Legation at noon four days ago. 
The handsome Arab, with a sheepskin coat rolled on the 
front of the saddle, holsters, and Persian housings, looked 
like a life-guardsman's horse. I nearly came to grief as 
soon as I got out of the Legation gate ; for he would not 
stand my English snafHe, and reared and threw himself 
about, and my spur touching him as he did so made liim 




812 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lcttot I 

quite wikl, and I endured much apprehension all tbrougli 
Tihran, expecting to find myself on the rough pavetnent ; 
but I took off the offending spur, and rode him nn the 
sharp bit he is used to, and when we were outside the 
gate he quietened down, and I had a long gallop. 

How different it all looks ! No more floundering 
through mud ! The trees of Abdul Azim are green. 
Caravans are moving fast and cheerily. Even the dead 
on tlieir last journey look almost cheerfid under the 
sunny skies. We did not rench Husseinabad till long 
after dark. It was -•jo unspeakably dark that my horse 
and I fell off the road into deep water, and we passed 
the caravanserai without knowing that we were near it 

The usual disorder of a first night was somewhat 
worse than usual. The loads were mixed up, and the 
servants and eharvadars were quarrelling, and I did not 
get my dinner till ten ; but things are all right now, aud 
have been since the following morning, when I assumed 
the reins of government and saw the mules loaded myself, 
an efficient interpreter making my necessary self-assertion 
intelligible. 

Though the spring has set in, most of the country 
between this and Tihran looks a complete desert. In 
February it was a muddy waste — it is now a dusty 
waste, on which sheep, goats, and camels pick up a grwy 
herbage, which without search is not obvious to the 
human eye, and consists mostly of wormwood and other 
bitter and aromatic plants. Off the road a few tulips 
and dwarf irises coming up out of the dry ground show 
the change of season. 

I came for some distance on one day by a road 
which caravans avoid because of robbers. It crosses a 
reddish desert with a few salt streams and much saline 
efflorescence, a blasted region without a dwelling or 
patch of cultivation. Yet a four-mile gallop across one 



LBTTEa I A SUCCESSFUL DISGUISE 213 

part of it was most inspiriting. As the two Arabs, 
excited by the pace, covering great spaces of ground with 
each powerful stride, dashed over the level gravel I 
thought, "They'll have fleet steeds that follow"; hut no 
steed or rider or bird or beast was visible through all 
that hungry land.' We passed also close to a salt lake on 
the Kavir, seen in the distance on the former journey, 
near which are now pitched a quantity of Ilyat tents, all 
black. The wealth of these nomads is in camels, sheep, 
and goats. Though the camps, five in number, were 
small, they had over 200 camels among them. 

Where four weeks ago there was deep mud there is 
now the glittering semblance of unsullied snow, and the 
likeness of frost crystals fills the holes. Miles of camels 
loaded with cotton march with stately stride in single 
file, the noble mountain camel, with heavy black fur on 
neck, shoulder, fore-ann, and haunch, and kindly gentle 
eyes, looking, as he is, the king of baggie animals, not 
degraded by servitude, though he may carry 800 lbs. 

Some of the sights of the road were painful. For 
instance, just as I passed a caravan of the dead bound 
for KQm a mule collided with another and fell, and the 
loosely-put-together boxes on its back gave way and 
corpses fell out in an advanced stage of decomposition, 
A camel just dead lay in a gully. On a ledge of rock 
above it seven gorged vultures (not the bald-headed) sat 
in a row. They bad already feasted on him to repletion. 
I passed several dead camels, and one with a pleading 
pathetic face giving up the ghost on the road. 

Yesterday I rode in here from the magniBcent caravan- 
serai of Shashgird, sixteen miles in three hours before 
lunch, and straight througii the crowded bazars to the 
tel^aph office unmolested, an Afghan camel- driver's 
coat, with the wool outside, having proved so good a 
disguise that the gholam who was sent to meet me returned 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

to his master saying that he hail not seen a lady, but that 
a foreign soldier aad sahih had come into Kflm, 

When my visit was over and I had received from Mr. 
Lyne the route to Isfahan, and such full information 
about rooms, water, and supplies as will enable me to 
give my own orders, and escape from the tyranny of the 
charvadars, having sent the horses to the caravanserai I 
disguised myself as a Fersian woman of the middle class 
in the dress which Mrs. Lyne wears in the city, a thick 
white cripe veil with open stitch in front of the eyes, a 
black sheet covering me from head to foot, the ends 
hanging from the neck by long loops, and held with the 
left hand just below the eyes, and so, though I failed to 
imitate the totter and shuttle of a Persian lady's walk, I 
passed imuoticed through the long and crowded streets 
of this fanatical city, attended only by a </kolam, and at 
the door of my own room was prevented from entering 
by the servants till my voice revealed my identity. 

Twice to-day I have passed safely through the city in 
the same disguise, and have even lingered in front of 
shops without being detected. Mr. and Mrs. Lyne have 
made the two days here very pleasant, by introducing me 
to Persians in whose houses I have seen various phases of 
Persian life. On reaching one house, where Mrs, Lyne 
arrived an hour later, I was a little surprised to be re- 
ceived by the host in uniform, speaking excellent French, 
but without a lady with him. 

He had been very kind to Hadji, who, he says, is rich 
and has tliree wives. The poor fellow's lungs have been 
aflecled for two years, and the affection was for the time 
aggravated by the terrible journey. He talked a good 
deal about Persian social customs, especially polygamy. 

He explained that he has only one wife, but that this 
is because he has been fortunate. He said that he r^ards 
polygamy as the most fruitful source of domestic unhappi- 



LETTER s DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 215 

ness, but that bo long as marriages are made for men by 
their mothers and sisters, a large sum being paid to the 
bride's father, a marriage is really buying " a pig in a 
poke," and constantly when the bride comes home she is 
ugly or bad-tempered or iinpleasing and cannot manage 
the house. " This," he said, " makes men polygamists 
who would not otherwise be so. 

" Then a man takes another wife, and perhaps this ia 
repeated, and then he tries again, and so on, and the house 
becomes full of turmoil. Tliere are always quarrels in a 
polygamous household," he said, " and the children dispute 
about the property after the father's death." Had he not 
been fortunate, and had not his wife been capable of 
managing the house, he said that he must have taken 
another wife, " for," he added, " no man can bear a badly- 
managed house." 

I thought of the number of men in England who have 
to bear it without the Moslem resource. 

A lady of " position " must never go out except on 
Fridays to the mosque, or with her husband's penniaaion 
and scrupulously veiled and guarded, to visit her female 
friends. Girl-children begin to wear the diadar between 
two and three years old, and are as secluded as their 
mothers, nor must any man but father or brother see 
their faces. Some marry at twelve years old. 

" La vie des ferames dans la Perse est tr^s triste," he 
aaid. The absence of anything like education for girls, 
except in Tihran, and the want of any reading-book but 
the Koran for boys and girls, he regards as a calamity. 
He may be a pessimist by nature ; he certainly has no 
hope for the future of Persia, and contemplates a Russian 
occupation aa a certainty iu the next twenty years. 

After a long conversation I asked for the pleasure, not 
of seeing his wife, but the " mother of his children," and 
■was rewarded by the sight of a gentle and lovely woman 



216 JOURNTTl'S IN PEESIA lbttkb i 

of twenty-one or twentj'-two, graceful in every movement 
but her walk, exquisitely refined-looking, with a most 
becoming timidity of expression, mingled with gentle 
courtesy to a stranger. She was followed by three very 
pretty little girls. The husband and wife are of very good 
family, and the lady has an unmistakably well-bred look. 

Though I knew what to expect in the costume of a 
woman of the upper classes, I was astonished, and should 
have been scandalised even had women only been present. 
The costume of ladies has undergone a great change in 
the last ninety years, and the extren)e of the fashion is 
as lacking in delicacy as it ia in comfort. However, much 
travelling compels one to realise that the modesty of the 
women of one country must not be judged of by the 
rules of another, and a lady costumed as I shall attempt 
to describe would avert her eyes in horror by no means 
feigned ^om an English lady in a Court or evening- 
dress of to-day. 

The under garment, very much en ividerux, is a short 
chemise of tinselled silk gauze, ot gold - embroidered 
luuslin so transparent as to leave nothing to the imagina- 
tion. This lady wore a skirt of flowered silver brocade, 
enormously full, ten or twelve yards wide, made to stand 
nearly straight out by some frills or skirts of very stiffly 
itiirched cotton underneath, the whole, not even on a 
mistband round the waist, but drawn by strings, and 
mspeuded over the hips, the skirts coming down to within 
^ few inches of the knee, leaving the white rounded 
Uiabs uncovered The effect of this exaggerated 
titt akirt is most singular. White socks are worn. 
■ the transparent -pirahdn, or chemise, she wore a 
, velvet jacket beautifully embroidered in gold, 
1 fronts about ten inches apart, so as to show 
rered chemise. Her eyebrows were artificially 
i tad lengthened till they appeared to meet above 



LSTTERi A PERSIAN LADY 217 

her nose, her eyelashes were marked round with koM, and 
a band of blue-black paint curving downwards above the 
Dose crossed her forehead, but was all but concealed by 
a small wtiite square of ailk crSpe on the head and brow 
and fastened under the chin by a brooch. 

Had she been in another house she would have worn 
a large square of gold -embroidered silk, with the points 
in front and behind, and fastened under the cbin. Under 
the cr6pe square there was a small akull-cap of gold- 
embroidered velvet, matcfiing her little zouave jacket, 
with an aigrette of gema at tJie side. Her arms were 
covered with bracelets, and a number of valuable necklaces 
eet off the beauty of her dazzlingly white neck. 

Persian ladies paint, or rather smear, but her young 
pure complexion needed no such aids. Her front hair, 
cut to the level of her mouth, hung down rather straight, 
and the remainder, which was long, was plaited into many 
small glossy plaits. Contrary to custom, it was undyed, 
and retained its jet-black colour. Most Persian ladies 
turn it blue-black with indigo, or auburn with henna, and 
with the latter the finger-nails and palms of the hands 
are always stained. 

Her jewellery was all of solid gold ; hollow gold and 
silver ornaments being only worn by the poor. She wore 
a chain with four scent caskets attached to it exhaling 
attar of roses and other choice perfumes. 

She was a graceful and attractive creature in spite of 
her costume. She waited on her husband and on me, 
that is, she poured out the tea and moved about the 
room for hot water and bonbons with the feeble, tottering 
gait of a woman quite unaccustouied to exercise, and to 
whom the windy wastes outside tlie city walls and a 
breezy gallop are quite unknown. The little girls were 
dressed in the style of adults, and wore tinselled gauze 
chaddra or cliargats. 



f 



218 JOURNEVS IN PERSIA letter i 

After aeeiug a good deal of home life during some 
months . in Persia, I have come to the conclusion 
that there ia no child life. Swaddled till they can 
walk, and then dressed as little men and women, with 
the adult tjTannies of etiquette binding upon them, 
and in the case of girla condemned from infancy to the 
seclusion of the andarun, there is not a trace of the 
spoutaneity and nonsense which we reckon as among 
the joys of childhood, or of such a complete and beautiful 
child life as children enjoy in Japan. There does not 
appear to be any child talk. The Persian child ftom 
infancy is altogether interested in the topics of adults; 
and as the conversation of both sexes is said by those 
who know them best to be without reticence or modesty, 
the purity wliich is one of the greatest charms of child- 
hood is absolutely unknown. Parental love is very 
strong in Persia, and in later days the devotion of the I 
mother to the boy is amply returned by the grown-up 
son, who regards her comfort aa his chaise, and her 
wishes aa law, even into old age. 

Wlien tea was over the host retired with the remark , 
that the ladies would prefer to amuse themselves alone, • 
and then a Princess and another lady arrived attended 
by several ser\'ants. This Princess came in the black 
silk sheet with a suggestion of gold about its border which 
is the street disguise of women of the richer classes, 
and she wore huge bag-like violet trousers, into which 
her voluminous skirts were tucked. 

She emerged from these wrappings a " harmony " in 
lose colour — a comely but over-painted young woman in 
rose and silver brocade skirts, a rose velvet jacket em- 
broidered in silver, a transparent white muslin piroJtait 
vilh silver stars upon it, and a chart/at of white muslin 
^tanidered in rose silk. 

She wid the hostess sat on a rug in front of a 



LBTTEH I ANDAR UN AUVSEMKUTA 219 

fire, and servants now and tlien handed them kalians. 
The three little girls and the guest's little girl were in 
the background. The doors were then fastened and a 
number of servants came in and entertained their 
mistresses. Two sang and accompanied themselves on 
a sort of tambourine. Tea was handed round at intervals. 
Tliere was dancing, and finally two or three women acted 
some little scenes from a popular Persian play. By 
these amusements, I am told, the women of the upper 
classes get rid of time when they visit each other ; and 
they spend much of their lives in afternoon visiting, 
taking care to be back before sunset After a long time 
the gentle hostess, reading in my face that I was not 
enjoying the performances, on which indeed unaccustomed 
English eyes could not look, brought them to a close, 
and showed me some of her beautiful dresses and em- 
broidered fabrics. 

Putting on my disguise and attended by a servant I 
walked a third time unrecognised and unmolested through 
the crowded bazars, through the gate aud across the 
bridge, when a boy looked quite into my shroud, which 
I was not perhaps clutching so tightly as in the crowd, 
and exclaiming several times Kafir, ran back into the 
city. I did not run, but got back to the " hotel " as 
fast as possible. 

It is very noby, and my room being on the ground 
floor, and having three doors, there is little 
either by day or night, Tliirteen days from the JVo 
Riu or New Year, which was March 21, are kept as a 
feast before the severe fast of the Bamazan, and this 
city of pdgrims is cit)wded, and all people put on new 
clothes, the boys being chiefly dressed in green. 

To-morrow I begin my journey over new gronud. 
I, L. n. 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTER XI 



Kashan, March 26. 
I HAVE seen the last of Kflm and hotels and made roads 
for many months. So much the better ! I had to ride 
the whole length of the bazars and the city, a mile and 
a half, hut the camel -driver's coat served again as a 
disguise, and I heard no remarks except from two boys. 
Indeed I am delighted to find that the "foreign soldier" 
who rides in front of me attracts so much curiosity that 
I pass in his wake unnoticed. 

The ruinous condition of Kiim is fearful. Once 
outside the houses and bazars which surround the 
shrine of Fatiraa, the town is mostly rubbish and litter, 
with forlorn, miserable houses created out of the 
rubbish, grouped near festering pools ; broken cause- 
ways infamously paved, full of holes, heaps of pot- 
sherds, hones obtruding themselves, nothing to please 
and everything to disgust the eye and sadden the 
spirit, religious intolerance, a diminished population, and 
desolation. 

The pottery bazar, alraunding in blue glazed ware of 
graceful shapes, and a number of shrines of saints, are 
the only objects of interest. The domes of the latter 
were once covered with blue tiles, but these have nearly 
all peeled off, leaving the universal mud — a mud so 
self-asserting everywhere that Persia may be called the 
" Great Mud Land." The cherry and apricot trees are 



LETTER SI HALCYON DAYS 221 

in full bloom, but as yet there is little greenery round 
K&m, and the area of cultivation is very limited. 

I am now on the road which, with the exception of 
that from Tihmn to Kesht, is best known to travellers,^ 
but I cannot help sketching it briefly, though the interests 
are few considering the distance travelled, 280 miles 
from Tihran to Isfahan. I now see Persia for the first 
time; for traversing a country buried in snow is not 
seeing it It would be premature to express the opinion 
that the leas one sees of it the more one is likely to 
admire it. 

I have been en rtntte for a week under the best 
possible circumstances — the nights always cool, the days 
never too warm, the accommodation tolerable, the caravan 
in excellent working order, no annoyances, and no griev- 
ances. The soldier who attends me arranges everything 
for my comfort, and is always bright and kind. I have 
no ambition to "beat the record," but long gallops on a 
fine Arab horse turn marches of from twenty-two to 
thirty miles into delightful morning rides of from three 
and a half to four and a half hours, with long pleasant 
afternoons following them, and sound sleep at night. These 
are my halcyon days of Persian travelling; and yet I 
cannot write that Persia is beautiful. 

It is early spring, and tulips and irises rise not out of a 
carpet of green but, to use the descriptive phrase of Isaiah, 
" as a root out of a dry ground," the wormwood is dressed 
in its gray-green, the buds of the wild dwarf-almond 
show their tender pink, the starry blossom of the nar- 
cissus gleams in moist places, the sky is exquisitely blue, 
and shining cloud-masses fleck the brown hillsides with 
violet shadows. Where there is irrigation carpets of 
young wheat cover the ground ; but these, like the villages, 
Isrge proportion of tha 




MS JOURNEYS !N PERSIA Lerrea ir 

occur only at long intervals, for the road passes mainly 
through a countrj' destitute of water, or rather of arrange- 
ments for storing it 

Aa to natural trees there are none, and even the bushes 
are few and unlovely, chiefly camel thorn and a rigid and 
thorny tamarisk. Beyond Kfim there is no made road. 
' A track worn by the caravans of ages exists, — sometiines 
Lporallel ruts for a width of half a mile, sometimes not 
I two yards wide, and now and then lapsing into illegi- 
bility. There are large and small caravanserais of an 
inferior class along the route, and cliapar khanas at inter- 
vals. Water is often bad and sometimes brackish. It 
is usually supplied from small brick abambars, or covered 
reservoirs. Milk is hard to obtain, often impossible; at 
some places fowls cau be bought for eightpence each, and 
" flap jacks " everywhere. 

Except the snowy cone of Demavend, with purple 
ranges curtaining his feet, no special object of admira- 
tion exists ; the plains are reddish, yellowish, barren, 
gravelly, or splotched with salt ; the ranges of hills, 
which are never far off (for Persia is a land of moun- 
tains), are either shapeless and gravelly, or rocky, rugged, 
and splintered, their Iiue reddish and purplish, their sides 
scored by the spring rush of wasted torrents, their aspect 
one of complete desolation, yet not without a certain 
beauty at this season — rose-flushed in the early morning, 
passing through shades of cobalt and indigo through the 
day, and dying away at sunset m translucent amethyst 
against a sky of ruddy gold. 

But, take away the atmospheric colouring — which the 
advancing heat will abolish — and the plain English of the 
route is this, that in every direction, far as the eye can 
, the country is a salt waste or a gravelly waste, 
inA a few limited oases of cultivation on the plains and 
\ Qua folds of the hills, always treeless, except round 



LETTER SI TRAVELLING POST 223 

a few of the villages, where there are small groves of 
poplars and willows. The villages are clusters of mud 
hovels, scarcely distinguishable from the wastes, and many 
of them are ruined and deserted, oppressive exactions or 
a failure of water being common reasons for a migra- 
tion. These dismal ruins are shapeless heaps of mud, 
the square towers of the square walls alone retaining any 
semblance of foroL 

Long lines of choked kanaals, denoted by their crumb- 
ling shafts, attest the industrious irrigation of a former 
day. Tracks wind wearily among shrunken villages, or 
cross ridges of mud or gravel to take their unlovely way 
over arid stony plains. Unwatered tracts of land, once 
cultivated, as the kanaats show, but now deserts of sand 
and stones, send up gyrating clouds of gritty dust. 

Such is Persia between its two capitals ; and yet I 
repeat that in cool weather, and on a good horse, the 
journey is a very pleasant one. Most European men 
ride chapar, that is, post; but from what I see of the 
chapar horses, I would not do it for the sake of doubling 
the distance travelled in the day, and therefore cannot 
describe either its pleasures or tortures from experience. 

On certain roads, as from Tihran to Shiraz, there are 
post stations {cliapar kliana) with horses and men at 
distances of from twenty to twenty-five miles, with a 
charge of one hran (eightpence) ^igt /nrsakh (four miles) 
for each horse engaged, an order having been previously 
obtained from a government official. Besides your own 
horse you have to take one for the skaagird ckajiar, or 
post-boy, who has to take the horses back, and one for the 
servant. The two latter carry the very limited kit, 
which includes a long cotton bag, which, being filled 
with chopped straw at night, forms the traveller's bed. 
The custom is to ride through all the hours of daylight 
whenever horses are to be got, doing from sixty to 



«4 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter u 

ninety miles a day, always inspired by the hope of 
" cutting the record," even by half an hour, and winning 
undying fame. 

The horses, which arc kept going at a canter so long 
as they can be thrashed into one, are small and active, 
and do wonders ; but from the strain put upon them, bad 
feeding, sore backs, and general dilapidation and exhaus- 
tion, are constantly tumbling down. Several times I 
have seen wretched animals brought into the j'ards. 
apparently " dead beat," and after getting some chopped 
straw and a little barley thrashed into a canter again 
for twenty-five miles more, because the traveller could 
not get a remount. They often fall down dead under 
their riders, urged by the hea\"y chapar whip to the last. 

Hiding chapar, journeying in a taJctrawan or litter, or in 
a kajawch, or riding caravan pace, by which only about 
thirty miles a day can be covered, are the only modes 
of travelling in Persia, though I think that with capable 
assistance a carriage might make the journey from Tihran 
as far as Kashan. 

I lodge in the chapar kkanas whenever I can. They 
consist of mud walls fourteen feet Iiigli, enclosing yards 
deep in manure, with stabling for the chapar horses on 
two sides, and recesses in their inner walls for mangers. 
The entrance is an arched gateway. There are usually 
two dark rooms at the sides, which the ser^'aiita occupy 
and cook in, and over the gateway is the balakhana, an 
abortive tower, attained by a steep and crumbling stair, 
in which I encamp. The one room has usually two 
doors, half- fitting and noii -shutting, and perhaps a 
window space or two, and the ashes of the last traveller's 
fire. 

Such a breezy rest just suits me, and when my camp 
furniture has been arranged and I am enjoying my 
" afternoon tea," I feel " monarch of all I survey," even 



THE BREEZY DESERT 



22a 



of the bouridlesa deaert, over which the cloud ahadowa 
chase each other till it purples in the light of the sink- 
ing sun. If there is the desert desolation there is also 
the desert freedom. 

The tirst halt was delicious after the crowds and 
fanaticism of Kflin. A broad plain with irrigated 
patches aud a ruiuous village was passed ; tlien came 
the desert, an expanse of camel-brown gravel thickly 
strewn with stones, with a range of low serrated 
brown hills, with curious stratification, on the east. A 
few caravans of camels, and the haram of the Governor 
of Tezd in closely -covered /vajawelts, alone broke the 
monotony. Before I thought we were half-way we 
reached the abavibars, the small brown caravanserai, and 
the chapar khana of Passangham, having ridden in three 
hours a distance on which I have often expended eight. 

Cool and breezy it was in my TOom, and cooler aud 
breezier on the flat mud roof; and the lifting of some 
clouds in the far distance to the north, beyond the great 
sweep of the brown desert, revealed the mighty Elbiirz 
range, white with new-fallen snow. At Sinsin the next 
evening it was gloriously cold. There had been another 
heavy snowfall, and in the evening the Elburz range, 
over a hundred miles away, rose in unsullied whiteness 
like a glittering wall, and above it the colossal cone of 
Demavend, rose-flushed. 

The routine of the day is simple and easy. I get the 
caravan off at eight, lie on the floor for an hour, gallop and 
walk for about half the march, rest for an hour in some 
place, where Mahboud, the soldier, always contrives t« 
bring me a glass of tea, and then gallop and walk to the 
halting - place, where I rest for another hour till the 
caravan comes in. I now know exactly what to pay, 
and by giving small presents get on very easily. 

There were many uncomfortable prophecies about the 

VOL. I Q 




2J6 .TOUKNEVS IN PERSLA lbtteii ii 

aunoyances and rudenesses which a lady travelling alone 
would meet with, hut so far not one has been fulfilled. 
How completely under such circumstances one has to 
trust one's fellow -creatures ! There are no fastenings od 
the doors of these hreezy rooms, and last night there 
was only the longitudinal half of a door, but I fell asleep, 
fearing nothing worse than a predatory cat 

The last two days' inarches have been chiefly over 
stony wastes, or among low hills of red earth, gray gravel, 
and brown luud, with low serrated ranges beyond, and 
farther yet high hills covered with snow, after which the 
road leaves the hills and descends upon a pink plain, 
much of the centre of which is snow-white from saline 
efflorescence. The villi^es Kasseinabad, Nasrabad, and 
Aliabad are passed on the plain, with small fniit trees 
and barley surrounding them, and great mud caravan- 
serais at intervals, only remarkable for the number of 
camels lying outside of them in rows facing each other. 
In the fi'esh keen air of evening the cone of Demaveiid 
was painted in white on the faint blue skj', reddening 
into beauty as the purple-madder shadows deepened over 
the yellow desert. 

Tea made with saltish water, and salt sheep's nulk, 
have been the only drawbacks of the six days' march. 

Not far from Kaahaii we entered on a great 

alluvial plain formed of fine brown earth without a 

single stone — a prolific soQ if it had water, as the fruit 

trees and abundant crops of young wheat round the 

villages show. So level, and on the wliole ao smooth, is 

llijg plain that it possesses the prodigy of a public con- 

nnnce, an omnibus with four horses abreast, which 

^|W its laborious way with the aid of several attendants. 

«hn lift the wheels out of holes, prevent it from capsizing, 

, ttoiuoittrily fill "P the small irrigation ditches whicli 

. WM ««»■ ^^ progress is less " by leaps and bounds " 



unds " J 



LETTER II THE INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH 227 

than by jolta ami rolls, and as my Arab horse bounded 
paat I wondered that six rnen could be found to exchange 
the freedom of the saddle for such a jerky, stuffy box. 

Five hundred yards from the gate of Kashan there is 
a telegraph station of the Indo-European line, where 
M. dii Viguau and his wife expected me, and have 
received me with great kindness and hospitality. The 
electricians at these stations are allowed to receive guests 
in what is known as the " Inspectors' Eoom," and they 
exercise this liberty most kindly and generously. Many 
a weary traveller looks back upon the " Inspectors' Eoom " 
as upon an oasis in the desert of dirt ; and though I 
cannot class myself just now with " weary travellers," 1 
cordially appreciate the kindness which makes one " at 
home," and the opportunity of exchanging civilised ideas 
for a few hours. 

I must not go beyond Kashan without giving a few 
words to the Persian section of the Indo-European 
telegraph line, one of the greatest marvels of telegraph 
construction, considering the nature of the country which 
the line traverses. Tihran is the centre of telegraphic 
control, and the residence of Colonel Wells, K.R, the 
Director, with a staff of twenty telegraphists, who work 
in relays day and night, and a Medical 0£Qcer. Julfa is 
another place of importance on the line, and at Shiraz 
there is another Medical OSicer. 

The prompt repair of the wires in cases of interruption 
is carefully arranged for. At suitable places, such aa 
Kftm, Soh, Kashan, and other towns or villages from fifty 
to eighty miles apart, there are control or testing stations, 
each being in chaise of a European telegraphist, who has 
under him two Persian horsemen, who have been welL 
trained as linesmen. At stated hours the clerks placP 
their instruments in circuit, and ascertain if all is right. 

If this testing reveals any fault, it can be localised at 




228 J0UENEY3 IN PERSIA letter xi 

oDce, and hoi-semen are despatched from the cnutiiil 
stations on either side of it, with orders to ride rapitUy 
along the line until they meet at the fault and repair it. 
As the telegraph crosses passes sueh as Kubrud, at an 
altitude of over SOOO feet, the duties of both inspectors 
and linesmen are most se^'ere, full not only of hardship 
but of danger in terrible winter storms and great depths 
of snow, yet on their ceaseless watehfulness and fidelity 
the safety of our Indian Empire may some day depend. 

The skill brought to bear upon the manipulation of 
this Government line from the Gulf, and throughout the 
whole system of which it is a part, is wonderful. 
Messages from any part of the TTuited Kingdom now 
reach any part of India in less than an hour and a half, 
and in only about one word in two hundred docs even 
the most trifling mistake occur in transmission, a result 
all the more surprising when it is remembered that the 
telegrams are almost entirely either in code or cypher, 
and that over 1000 are transmitted in the course of a 
day. 

Among these are the long despatches continually 
passing between the Viceroy of India and the India 
Office on vitally important subjects, and press telegrams 
of every noteworthy event. The " exhaustive summary " 
of Indian news which appears weekly in the Times, 
accompanied by a commentary on events, is an altogether 
un -padded telegram, and is transmitted with punctua- 
tion complete, and even with inverted commas for 
quotations.' 

The English staff, numbering from fifty to sixty men, 
is scattered along a line of 1900 miles. Some of them 

> MajoT-Geneml Sir R. Murdoch Smith, E.C.M.a., late Director of the 
Persian section of the luJo-Eurojieau telegraph, read a very int«rBsting 
pnper upoo it before the Royal Scottish Geographical Society on December 
13, 18B8,— a SkOch of Uk History of TdrgTwphit Communication bdwccn 
the l/ai/td Einjdom and India. 



LETTER XI THE TELEGRAPH STAFF 229 

are married, and most occupy isolated positions, so far 
as other Europeans are concerned. It is the universal 
testimony of Englishmen and Persians that the relations 
between them have been for • many years of the most 
friendly character, full of good-will and mutual friendly 
offices, and that the continual contact brought about by 
the nature of the duties of the electricians has been pro- 
ductive not of aversion and distrust, but of cordial apprecia- 
tion on both sides. I. L B. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter i 



LETTER XI {Continued) 

Kashan is one of the hottest places on the great Pentan 
plateau, but has the rare luxury of a good water supply 
brought from a reservoir some distance off in the Kuhriid 
mountaiua. It has a much-dimiiiished population, said 
now to number 30,000 souls. Much of it is in ruins, 
and much more is ruinous. It has a thriving colony of 
Jews. It is noted for its silts and velvets ; but the 
modem productions are regarded by judges as degenerate. 
It is still famous for its work in copper and for its 
great copper bazar. 

Silk produced at Eesht ia brought here to be spun 
and dyed. Then it is sent to Snltanabad to be woven 
into carpets, and is brought back agam to have tie 
pile cut by the sharp instruments used for cutting 
velvet pile, and the finished carpets are sent to Tiliran 
for sale. They are only made in small sizes, and 
are more suitable for pm-lUres than for laying on the 
floor. The colouring ia exquisite, and the metallic sheen 
and lustre are unique. Silk carpets are costly luxuries. 
The price of even a fairly good one of very small size is 
£50, the ailk alone costing £20. 

Kashan is a great place for curw buyers, who enlist 
the Jews in their service. There are some valuable 
antiques in this house — embroideries, carpet squares in 
silk, glass whose greenish colour and grace of form 
remind me of Venetian glass, enamels on porcelain, tiles. 




LETTKBii liEFLET TILES 231 

metal inlaying and daTiiasceniiig, pierced brasswork, and 
many other articles of rcrtu, the art of making which is 
either lost or has greatly degenerated. 

It is imaccoiintable, but it is certain that the secret 
of producing the higher types of beauty in various arts, 
especially the Keramic, died out more than one hundred 
and fifty years ago, and that there are no circumstances 
of that date to account for its decease, except that it is 
recorded that when the Afghan conqueror Mahmoud 
destroyed Isfahan he massacred the designers of reJUt 
tiles and other Keramic beauties, because they had 
created works which gave great umbrage to the Sunni 
sect to wliich he belonged. 

These reflets, for which collectors give fabulous sums, 
are intrinsically beautiful, both in the elegant concep- 
tions of their designs and the fantastic richness of their 
colouring. There are designs in shades of brown 
on a lapis-lazuli ground, or in blue and green on a 
purple or umber ground, some of thera star-shaped, with 
a pure white border composing the rest of the square, on 
which are inscribed phrases from the Koran. Looked 
at from above or frontwise, one exclaims, " Wliat a beau- 
tiful tile ! " but it is on turning it to the light that 
one's stereotyped phrases of admiration are exchanged for 
silence in presence of a singular iridescence which trans- 
figures the tile, making it seem to gleam from within 
with golden purples and rosy gold. 

The mosaic tiles are also beautiful, especially where 
the mosaic is on a lapis-lazuli or canary-yellow ground, 
neither of thera reproducible at this day ; and this also 
refers to other shades of blue, and to various reda and 
browns of exceediug richness, the art of making which 
has been lust for a century. But enough of art 1 

Possibly there may be a resurrection for Persian art ; 
bat in the meantime aniline dyes, tawdry European 




S3S JOrRNEYS IN PERSIA 

importfttioDB, and Western niodeb without either grace 
or originality are doing their beat to deprave it 
elsewhere. 

Eoads from TiJiran, Gulpaigan, Yezd, and Igfabao 
meet here, and it is something of what the Ameticuit' 
call " a distributiiig point," but it is a most uninviting 
in situation and general aspect, and its unsightly 
ruins, as in other Persian cities, are eloquent of 
hut paralysis and retrogression. 

Murcheh Khurt, Palm Sunday, Mareh 30. — Three ^ ' 
pleasant marches, equal to seventy-six miles, have bnuf^^ 
me here, and now Isfahan is only two days off, andstf 
will end my palmy days of Persian travelling. 

The first day's march from Kashan was only 
farsakhs (the jxirasang of Xenophon), twenty-eight 
hut it is equivalent to thirty-five, owing to the rougl 
of the road and the long ascent. There was scarcelf. 
ground for galloping, the way was lost once, 
march took over eight honrs. 

The track, for only in places did it 
dignity of a bridle-road, lay for hours over 
desert, and then entered the mountains, where I hi 
an hour at the once magnificent caravanserai of Gab^^...^ 
in a romantic situation, hut falling fast into ruifcj - 
deserted for no reason, so far as I could make <v 
that people used to be robbed and have their tlir%^, 
there. 

Beyond it the scenery became very wild, and *iV:-v 
and mountains higlily coloured and snow-pat< 
after ascending along the side of a stream 
causewayed sort of stair past the reservoir "v« 
plies Kashan with water, we entered the risir*^ 
Kulu^d, where the snow came nearly down t 
and every slope was terraced and every lev&T 
and young wheat was springing and fi'via 






A CHAPAR KHANA 233 

flourished, with green award under the branches, and great 
poplars in picturesque groups towered above the lower 
woods. 

We lost the way in the snow, and then took to the 
pebbly river as the safest track, aud had an hour of 
fumbling in water and auow under applu and pear trees 
for the halting-place. The twilight of a frosty evening 
was coming on when we reached the village of KuhrOd — 
500 houses in terraces on a mountain side, and clustering 
round a fort on a projecting spur. 

It is surrounded and interpenetrated by groves of 
walnut, apricot, cherry, peach, plum, apple, pear, poplar, 
and vine, with rosea climbing over everything and planted 
in rows like vines, and through it passes a fair, bright 
stream of living water, a stream " whose waters fail not," 
turning the mountain valley into an oasis. But at that 
altitude of something like 7000 feet, the buds are only 
just swelling, and the crimson catkins of the hazels were 
the only reminder of sjiring. It is tlie one place that I 
should care to revisit. 

The snow was piled in great heaps in the village and 
against the wall of the very wretched, ruinous chapar 
khaiui in which I sought rest and shelter. Mahboud 
went up to the loft over the gateway, aud came down 
; looking dejected, mustering English euoufjh to say, " No, 
mo, mem Sahib!" I actually had to occupy one of the 
two gateway rooms, an inferior stable, without the smallest 
window hole, and no door except two imconnected boards 
mfith which one coidd cover a part of the doorway. Even 
'■when these were not put up a candle was necessary. It 
was freezing hard, but one could not have a fire because 
there was no smoke-hole. The walls were slimily and 
inhily black from the smoke of the fires of people who 
were less particular than I am. The dust and rubbish 
I'Of the floor were swept into one comer. If one wanted 




S34 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctteb si 

a place to store boxes in, and looked into tbat room, one 
would exclaim dubiously, " Well, it miyht do for glass and 
china ! " 

Mahboud put a rug on the floor and brought a bowl 
of delicious milk, and with an inverted saddle for a pillow 
I rested quite comfortably, being too tired to be impatient, 
till Mirza Yusuf arrived with iny luxuries, and the uews 
that the caravan could not get in for another hour, for 
that several of the mules had fallen and the loads were 
slipping round constantly. Indeed it was ten before I 
had dinner. It is very fortunate to have an attendant 
always cheerful, never fussy, caring nothing for personal 
comfort, and always ready to interpret. 

The ketehvda called with the usual proSer of service, 
" I am your sacrifice," etc., and induced me to buy some 
of the specialties of Kuhrud, rose-water in bottles without 
corks, and a paste made of rose-water, pounded walnuts, 
and sugar. The rose-water is not very clear, but it has 
much of the overpowering, lingering odour of attar of roses. 

Kuhrud seems prosperous. Besides exporting large 
quantities of rose-water and walnut paste formed mto 
blocks and done up in white skins, it sends wheat and 
fruit in abundance to Kashau. 

Freedom, good sleep, and satisfactory travelling make 
up for all annoyances but vermin, and these are still 
hybernating. In that precarious privacy I slept soundly, 
and got the caravan off at eight the next morning — a 
glorious winter morning, the icy roads and the snow- 
covered valley glittering with frost crystals. We lost 
the way again among the pretty orchards, then got into 
a valley between high mud mountains, whose shapetess- 
ness is now juilicionsly concealed by snow from one to 
three feet deep, through which a track has been broken 
a foot wide. It is six miles from Kuhrtid to the Bummtt 
of the Kuhrud Pass, which is over 8000 feet, and it grew 



LETTEU SI A "BLIZZAED" 235 

very cold and gray, and ragged masses of cloud swept 
angrily round the mountain -tops. 

On the steepest part of the ascent it was extremely 
slippery, and the horses not being roughed slipped badly, 
and I was just fearing an accident to my bon'owed horse 
and planning some method of dismounting when down he 
came on Lis nose and then on the side of his head, and 
fell several times again in his stniggles to get up, his feet 
slipping from under him. When he did succeed in 
getting on his legs I was convinced tliat he had cut his 
kneee, and slipped olf him somehow to examine them ; but 
my fears wese gi'oundless, and I had great difficulty in 
getting out of the drift into which I had descended, which 
was nearly up to my shoulders. His nose was bleeding 
a little, but that was all. 

There was no way of remounting on a path a foot 
wide between walls of snow, and besides I was a&oid 
of another accident, so I slipped the snaffle rein over 
his head and led him. It was horribly slippery, and 
having nails in my boots 1 fell several times just under 
his feet, but the sweet creature always stopped when 
I fell. 

From the top there was a truly fearful view of 
" blackness, darkness, and tempest," inky mists, white 
mountain-tops showing momentarily through them to 
be lost again, and great sheets of very deep snow. Soon 
the gathering storm burst, a " bUzzard " in which the 
snow was quite blinding, snow drifting and hissing as it 
went by, tlie wind tempestuous, mountains, valleys, path 
obliterated, even the soldier in front of me constantly 
lost to sight. An hour of this and I could walk no 
more, and somehow scrambled into the saddle. 

At the foot of the descent the sky cleared, the sun 
ehone, and we picked up the caravan, which had had 
rather a hard time. The succeeding route was through 



836 



JOUBNEVS IN PERSIA 



an absolutely uniuhabited and imiubabitable country, 
clay and luiid bills, purple, red, gray, piuk, brown, an 
utter desolation, till we came in sight of the good-sized 
and at a distance imposing-looking vill^e of Soh in a 
keen wind with frequent snow sliowera. Soh is a 
telegraph testing station. 

The electrician was absent, but bad kindly left 
directions that I was to be received, and I foimd a most 
comfortable guest-room quite ready. A little later an 
Englishman riding chapar to Isfahan threw a packet of 
English letters in at my door— a delightful surprise, 
which made havoc of the rest of the eveiiiu||;. 

The desolation of this part of the route may be 
judged of from the fact that except the village of Kulirud 
there is not an inhabited house for forty-six miles. The 
country traversed reminds me much of the least inter- 
esting part of the route from Lesser Tibet into Kulu. 

Yesterday morning there was ice, and the mads were 
very slippery on the gradual descent from tbe plain 
which opens out after passing Bideshk, the chapar station, 
an hour from Soh. The twenty-four miles' ride over 
this gravelly waste, quite uninhabited, was very pleasant, 
as it was possible to gallop much of the way, and be- 
sides the beauty of the atmospheric colouring the mirage 
occurring in most remarkable forms rendered monotony 
impossible. 

There were no caravans on the road, but I met 
several dervishes, and there is one here to whom I have 
given what he demanded — a night's lodging. He carries 
a large carved almsbolder ; and the panther skin on bis 
shoulders, the knotted clnb, and his lean, hungry, fanatical 
face give him a dangerous look. All I have seen on 
this march have worn long matted bushy hair, often 
covering their shoulders, an axe in the girdle, and 
peculiar turbans decorated with phrases from the Koran. 



■EB SI PERSIAN DERVISHES 237 

They are the " raendicaut fiiars " of Persia, and are under 
vows of poverty. Some are said to be learned ; but they 
object to discussing religious matters with infidels, and 
almost nothing is known as 
to their beliefs. They hold 
universally the sanctity of 
idleness, and the duty of 
being supported by the 
community. The lower 
classes hold them in rever- 
ence, and the upper, though 
they are apt to loathe them, 
treat them with great re- 
spect, for fear of laying 
themselves open to the 
charge of laxity in religious 
matt«ra. 

Many of them deal in 
charms, and are consulted 
as astrologers. Some are 
professed tellers of stories, 
to which I am told no 
European could degrade 
himself by listening, but 
which are most palatable 
to a village audience ; '""" 

and at this moment this unwelcome guest of mine has 
a crowd listening to a narrative partly told and partly 
acted. 

They are credited with many vices, among the least 
of which are hazy ideaS as to mine and thine, opium and 
bhang smoking to excess, and drunkenness. 

They have recognised heads or chiefs, to whom they 
show great deference. One of their vows is that of 
obedience ; and besides paying to the chief a part of the 




238 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LLTtEB n 

alms they receive, he gives them orders as to the bouses 
ttiey are to infest, and though the uuisauce is not so 
common as formerly, a dervish at the door is still a sign 
of beiug great or rich, or both. Their cries, and their 
rude blasts on the buffalo horn, which la a usnal part 
of their equipment, are most obnoxious. In the larger 
towns, such as Kflm and Kirmanshah, there are shops for 
the sale of their outfit — the tiger and panther skius, tlie 
axes, the knotted clubs, the almsbowls, etc 

Some are respet-table, and enjoy much conaideration, 
and I hope that many even of those whom a careful 
writer has called " disgusting vagabonds " are not hum- 
bugs ; but the presumption is so much the other way 
that I am always glad when the ground admits of 
galloping piist them, otherwise the dervish comes forward, 
with his knotted club much eii Evidence, with many 
compliments and good wishes, or else silently extends his 
olmsholder, ejaculating Suk ("my right"). I usually 
have the means of appeasing, if not of satisfying liini, 
but on the rare occasions when I have had no money 
the yells and maledictions have been awful. 

The light and profane use of the Divine name is 
universal. The dervishes curse, but every one uses the 
name Allah wherever they can bring it in. The Ya 
Allah, as an expression of fatigue, or discontent, or 
interest, or nothing, is heard all day, and the boy who 
drives a cow, or a t-eam, or a mule in a caravan, cries Ya 
Allah incessantly as an equivalent of "go along," and the 
gardener pushing his spade into the ground, the chopper 
with every blow of the axe, the labourer throwing up 
bricks, ejaculates the same. MashaUah, Iiishallah, inter- 
lard all conversation. When men are building, the 
perpetual sing-song of phrases such as these is heard, 
" Brother, in God's name toss me a brick," the other 
replying, " Brother, in God's name here is a brick.' 



CHOICE PHRASEOLOGY 



239 



The vocabulary of abuse is also very large, and often 
L involves serious reflectious on the female relatives of the 
I person abused. I hear such harmless phrases as " son 
r of a burnt father," " son of a dog," " offspring of a pig," 
I etc., on all occasions. 

Murcheb Kburt is a large village with a good deal 

L of cultivation about it, a mosque or more, a hummam, 

I a chapar IcJiana, and a caravanserai. Here again I 

found that the smart foreign soldier attracted all the 

notice, and that before the people ceased to wonder at 

him I had passed them. The chapar khana was full 

of men, so I have had to sink to the level of a recessed 

den with a manger in front in a ruinous caravanserai 

crowded with Persian travellers, muleteers, mules, horses, 

and asses, and the courtyard half-choked with ruins. I 

bad not seen the inside of one of these dens before. 

Travellers have exhausted the vocabulary of abuse upon 

them ; possibly they deserve it in the " vermin season " ; 

but there is nothing worse than a square and perfectly 

dark room, with uuplastered walls blackened by the smoke 

and cobwebs of ages, and a door which will not fasten. 

I The air is cool and the sky blue, and sitting at the 

\ open door is very pleasant. Mahboud and two of the 

servants caught cold at Kuhrud and are ill, and my Arab 

has a chill too. He is a very stupid horse. His gentle 

eyes never change tlieir expression, and his small ears 

rarely move. He has little sense or affection, but when 

I he is patted his proud neck takes on a loftier arch, 

I Gentle as he is to people he is a brute to other horses. 

He would like to fight every one of them, to stand on hia 

hind-legs and grapple them round the shoulders with his 

fore-feet and bite their necks, roaring and squealing all the 

time. He and Mahboud's horse are inveterate enemies, 

I and one of the few difficulties of the journey is the keep- 

1 ing them from a regular stand-up fight. 





S40 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LErrai u 

This village is an oasis in the desert, I Iiavo been 
through its gates, barely wide enough to ftdniit au as"; 
loaded with brushwood, with the seraidar and Mirza. 
walked through its narrow alleys, and inadvertency 
stumbled into a mosque where a great crowd of women 
were listening to a story of one of the twelve Imams 
told by a mollak. looked down upon it and over the 
adjacent country from a house roof, visited several houses, 
in which some of the inmates were ill and desired " Keringhi 
medicine," had a long conversation with the kelchuda, whu 
came to see me to ask for eye lotion, and with the arr- 
aidar, and altogether have had quite a pleasant day. 

Chapar Kkana, Gez. — I am sitting in one of the three 
doorless doorways of my loft, grieving that the journey 
is just over, and that this is the last night of the exhilar- 
ating freedom of the deserL I rode twenty-four miles 
before one o'clock to-day, over a level uncultivated plain, 
bordered as usual by ranges of mountains. In fact, while 
I write of levels and plains it must be understootl that 
Persia is chiefly a land of hills rising from a table- 
land from 3400 feet to 6000 feet in altitude, and that the 
traveller is rarely, if ever, more than fourteen or fifteeu 
miles from mountains from 2000 to 6000 feet above 
the plain from which they rise, crownei.1 by Demavend, 
whose imposiug summit is 18,600 feet above the sea. The 
hills beyond Isfahan have assumed lofty proportions, and 
some of the snowy mountains of Luristan are to be seen 
in the far distance. 

It is nearly an unmitigated waste between Murcheh 
Khurt and Gez, destitute even of tufts of wormwood ; but 
the latter part of the march is through a stoneless alluvial 
desert of dry friable soil, soft springy gallo])ing groimd 
which water would turn into a paradise of fertility ; and 
water there has once been, for uot far from the road are 
the remains of some kanaats. 



KANAATS 



341 



The questioiia naturally arise in a traveller's mind, first, 
what becomes of the enormous amount of suow which 
falls on the mountains ; and next, how in a country so arid 
as the plateaus of Central Asia water for irrigation, and 
for the basins and fountains which abound in rich men's 
houses, is obtained. 

Wells, unless the artesian borings shortly to be begun 
in the Tihran desert should be successful, are all but 
unknown, except for supplying drinking water, and there 
are scarcely any reservoirs, but ingenuity has devised a 
plan of subterranean water-channels, which besides their 
other advantages prevent loss by evaporation. Tihran 
has thirty-five of them, and the water which they dis- 
tribute is naturally expensive, as the cost of making them 
is great. 

It is on the slope of a hill that the spring is found 
which is the original source of supply ; this is tapped at 
fiome depth, and its waters are led along a tunnel about 
four feet high by two feet wide lined with baked pottery 
where the ground is soft, and having a slight fall to 
the next spring or well, which may be from twenty-five 
to even sixty yards off. 

As the labourers dig they draw up the earth and 
arrange it in a circle round the shaft, and as they come 
to water they draw up the mnd and pour it on the top 
of the eartli, where it dries and hardens, and below, the 
water is conducted as a running underground stream 
across great plains, its progress marked by mounds which 
have been compared to ant-hills and craters, but to my 
thinking are more like the shafts of disused mines. 

Hundreds of these ka-naats are seen, ruined and dry, 
and are the resort of porcupines and jackals. To con- 
struct a knnaat may call a village or series of villages 
into being. The letting it fall to ruin is one cause of 
deserted villages. Those which are not lined require 
VOL.1 K 



242 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettke ii 

auiiual repairs, which are now going on, but frequently 
the complete fall of the roof destroys the fall of the 
water, and the tunnel becomes irreparable. 

The peasants are obliged to buy the water, for they 
cannot steal it, and the making of a kanaal is often a 
lucrative speculation. Pigeons live in them, and many 
of them are full of fish, which foreigners amuse themselves 
by poisoning by throwing a mixture of coctiUiui indicus 
with dough down the wells, when the poisoned but 
wholesome fish rise to the surface. They usually recover 
when they are left in the water. Dr. Wills describes them 
as having a muddy taate. The kanaals are a feature ot 
Persia. 

Ever since leaving KOm all the dry and hard parts of 
the road h&ve been covered with the industrious " road 
beetle," which works, like the ant, in concert, and carries 
on its activities at all seasons, removing from the road to 
its nest all the excreta of animals, except in regions 
where even animal fuel is so exceptionally scarce that 
boys with asses and ponies follow caravans for the same 
purpose. These beetles hover over the road on the wing, 
and on alighting proceed to roll the ball towards the neat, 
four or five of them standing on their hind-legs and 
working it forwards, or else rolling it with their beads 
close to the ground. Their instinct is wonderful, and 
they attract the attention of all travellers. They are 
about the size of a small walnut. Otherwise there is 
little of animated life to be seen on this route. 

No day has had fewer noticeable objects. Two or 
three ahambars, several caravanserais in absolute ruins, 
and a magnificent one in partial ruins are its record. 

Gez consists of this post-house and a decaying 
caravanserai From the roof as I write I watch the 
grooming of a whole row of ckapar horses. As each pad 
is removed there is a horrid revelation of wounds, deep 



LETTER XI CHAPAR HORSES 243 

ulcers, acres often a foot long, and in some cases the 
white vertebriE of the spine are exposed. These are the 
wretched animals which often carry men who ride from 
fourteen to seventeen stone fifty miles in a day. It ia 
hard enough even with extreme carefulness to keep the 
back of a horse all right on a continuous journey, but I 
never before saw animals ridden in such a state. They 
wince pitifully when their pads are put on again. 

The desert ia all around, purpling in the sunset, sweep- 
ing up to low broken ridges, and to some higher hills in 
the north-west covered with new-fallen snow. That the 
waste only requires water to make it prolific is apparent, 
for below these walls wheat is growing luxuriantly in 
some deep pits, irrigated from a dirty ditch out of which 
the drinking water cornea. Nothing can be got, except 
by sending to a village a mile away. 

Four of the men are ill, one with infiammation of the 
eyes, another with an abscess, and a third, a very strong 
man, with something like bilious fever, and a ckarvadar 
with malarial fever. The strong man's moans often 
become howls. He insists that he shall die to-night. 
These two afternoons have been much taken np with 
making poultices and medicines, and I shall be glad for 
the poor fellows to reacli Isfahan and the care of a 
competent doctor. 

Jvifa, April S. — I daresay this journey seema longer 
to you than it did to me. It was very pleasant, and its 
goal is pleasant, and a most kind welcome and the 
refinement of cultured English people go far to compen- 
sate for the loss of the desert freedom and the easy 
stride of the Arab horse. 

I started the caravan at nine yesterday, with two 
men with bandaged eyes, and other two hardly able to 
sit on their mules ; Mahboud, who is really more seriously 
ill than any ot them, keeping up his pluck and capable- 




S44 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctteb n 

ness to the last. The man who threatened to die at 
Gez was very much better the next nioming. 

Soon after leaving Gez the country changes its aspect, 
the road becomes very bad, and passes through nine miles 
of rich cultivation — wheat, barley, opium, and vegetables 
growing abundantly ; orchards are numerous, vill^es with 
trees and gardens succeed each other rapidly, water 
abounds, and before the gate of Isfahaji is reached, 
domes and minarets rising among cypresses, planes, and 
poplars indicate the remains of the former capital of 
Persia. 

Inside the shabby gateway the road to Julfa lies 
among rows of mean mud houses, heaps of ruins, and 
shabby provision bazars ; and that mile or more of Isfahan 
was ttie one disagreeable part of the journey. 

It was about the last day of the holidays, and the 
bazars, alleys, and open spaces were full of men in gay 
attire, and companies of shrouded women were moving 
along the quieter roads. It was too warm for the sheep- 
skin coat which had served me so well at Kflm, and I 
had dressed with some regani to European sensibilities. 
The boys began to about " A Feringhi woman! a Nazarene 
woman ! " and then to call bad names ; then men began 
to make up fiendish laughs,' and the howls and outcries 
gathered strength as I weut on at the inevitable foot's 
pace, spitting being quite common, poor Mahboud con- 
stantly turning to me a perturbed wretched face, full 
of annoyance at the insults of his eo-religionists, which 
it would have been dangerous to resent. It was a had 
half- hour. 

' 1 {^an iiaagine now wbat a hcUiiih Inngli tb»X wiB with which "tbejr 
laughed Hiin to scorn." 

1 was a month in Julfa, but mvet saw anjlhiog oiotb of lafahan, which 
ia such a fanatical city that I believe ereii eo lately as last year none of 
the ladies of the F.urojwan community had Tisited it, except one or two 
diagitiscd as FeraiaD woiaen. 



LETTEH 31 TIIE LANES OF JULFA 245 

Before passing the residence of the Amir-i-Panj {the 
commauder of 5000) near the Julfa gate the uproar 
died away, and once through the gate and in the 
Cliakar Bagh (four gardens) there was peace. A bad 
road of cobble stones, witli a double avenue of once 
magnificent planes, some once ornamental tanks, very 
high walls, pierced by storied gates, ornamented with 
wild designs on plaster in flaring colours, above which 
a blue dome is a conspicuous object, leads to a handsome 
bridge of thirty-three arches, with a broad level road- 
way, and corridors for foot passengers on either side, over 
the Zainderud, then came fields with springing wheat, a 
few houses, a narrow alley, and two or three miles from 
Isfahan the gate of its Armenian suburb, Julfa. 

At once on crossing the bridge there was a change. 
Ruddy, cheery- looking unveiled women in red gowns, 
and pure white chudara completely enveloping their 
persons, moved freely about, and the men wore neither 
the becoming turban nor the ominous scowl of Islam. 
In the quaint narrow streets were churches with 
open vestibules, through which pictures of the thorn- 
crowned Chrbt and of sweet-faced Madonnas were visible ; 
priests in black robes and women in white glided 
along the narrow roads. There was the fresher, purer 
air of Christianity, however debased and corrupted. In 
the low-browed chuiches divine honours are paid to a 
crowned and risen Christ, and the white -robed women 
have been baptized into His name. Never again will 
the Julfa alleys be ao peaceful and lovable as yesterday, 
when they offered a Iiaveu from the howling bigots of 
Isfahan. 

Dr. Bruce has not returned from Baghdad, but Mrs. 
and Miss Bruce welcomed me very kindly, and I am 
already forgetting my unpleasant reception. I. L. B. 



JODRNErS IN PERSIA 



LETTKK XII 

JULFA, April 17. 

Mr, George Cdrzon wrote of Julfa : " The younger Julfa 
is a place wboHy destitute of superficial attractions, con- 
sisting as it does of a labyrinth of narrow alleys closed 
by doors and plentifully perforated with open sewers. 
Life there is ' cabined, cribbed, confined ' to an intoler- 
able degree, and it is a relief to escape from its squalid 
precincts." 

I dare not write thus if I. would! It is now the 
early spring. The " sewers " are clear rapid streams, 
margined by grass and dandelions, and shaded by ash 
trees and pollard willowa in their first flush of green. 
The " narrow alleys " are scrupulously clean, and there is 
neither mud nor dust. If I go up on the roof I see a 
cultivated oasis, gardens prolonged indefiuitely concealing 
the desert which lies between them and the bold moun- 
tain ranges which surround this lofty and breezy plain. 
Every breeze is laden with the delicious odour of the 
bean blossom. A rapid river spanned by noble bridges 
hurries through the oasis it has lielped to create, and on 
its other side the domes and minarets of Isfahan rise out 
of masses of fiue trees, and bridges and mosques, minarets 
and mountains, are all seen through a most exquisite pink 
mist, for hundreds of standard peach trees are in full 
bloom, and look where one may everytliing is coulcur dt 



1 



LETTER XII SOCIETY IN J0LFA 

I quite admit that Julfa consists of a"labyrintli of 
alleys." I can never find my way about it One alley 
with its shady central stream (or " sewer "), its roughly 
paved path3 on either side, its mud walla pierced by low 
doors, is very much like another, and however lucky one 
may be in " happening on " the right road, it is always a 
weary time before one escapes from between mud walls 
into the gardens and wheatfields, to the blossoming beans, 
and the exquisite wild-flowers among the wheat 

Afl to the "cabined, cribbed, conftued" life, I caa 
give no testimony from personal knowledge. All life in 
Kuropean settlements in the East appears to me " cabined, 
cribbed, confined," and greatly devoid of external interests. 
Perhaps Julfa is deficient in the latter in an eminent degree, 
and, in a very small foreign community people are inter- 
ested chiefly in each other's affairs, sayings, and doings. 
Lawn tennis, picnics, and dinner parties are prevalent, 
the ordinary etiquette of European society prevails, and 
in all cases of need the residents are kind to each other 
both in life and death. 

The European society is divided into three circles — 
the missionaries, the mercantile community, and the 
telegraph staff The British agent, Mr. Aganoor, is aa 
Armenian.' No Christians. Armenian or European, live 
in Isfahan, and it is practically d^/endu to European 
women. This transpontine restriction undoubtedly 
narrows the life and interests of Julfa. It is aggravat- 
ing and tant^ilising to be for ever looking at a city of 
60,000 or 70,000 people, the fallen capital of the Sufari 
dynasty, and never be able to enter it 

This Christian town of Julfa has a certain accessible 
' Stace ray risit Mr. Prceoe, theo, and for many previous years, the 
HDperintending electncUD of this section of tliu Indo-European trlegraph, 
has been appointed Conaul, the increaaing dimeueiaaa of English interest* 
and the incrcasiiig Dumber of resident British subjects rendering the 
creation of a CouNulate at Ulabau a very desirable atep. 



i 



248 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctter in 

historic interest Slmli Abbas, justly surnamed the Great, 
conceived the sagacious project of iotroducing amoiig bia 
Persian subjecta at Isfahan — then, in the latter part of 
the sixteenth ceiiUiry, a magnificent capital — the Christian 
habits of trading, sagacity, and thrift, for then as now 
the Armenians had commercial dealings with China, India, 
and Europe, and had imported several arts into Persia. 

This project he carried out in truly despotic fashion 
by moving almost the whole population of Julfa on the 
Araxes, on the modern Eusao-Persian frontier, to the 
bituks of the Zainderud, making over to it the best lands 
in the neighbourhood of Isfahan. Many years later tlie 
new Julfa was a place with twenty-four churches, great 
prosperity, and an estimated population of 40,000. Its 
agriculturists were prosperous market -gardeners for the 
huge city of Isfahan, and it had likewise a great trading 
community, and was renowned for tlie making of jewelleiy 
and watches. 

It has now a dwindling population of about 3000, 
chiefly elderly men, women, and girls, the young men, 
after receiving a good education in the Church Mission 
and other schools, flying from its stagnation to India, 
Java, and even Europe. The twenty-four churches are 
reduced to twelve, and these with the vast cemetery in 
the desert at the base of Kuh Sufi are its chief objects of 
interest, apart from those which are human and living. 

April 22. — The peach blossoms have long since fallen, 
but perhaps I still see Julfa couU^tr de rose, even after 
three weeks, so very great is the kindness under this roof, 
and so fully is my time occupied with various interests, 
and tlie preparations for a ditticult journey. 

This, as you know, is the Church Mission House. 
Dr. Bruce has been here for twenty years, and until lately, 
vhen the Archbishop of Canterbury's mission to the 
Assyrian Christians began its work at Urmi, near the 




LETTER sii THE EMGLISH MISSION 249 

Turkish frontier in the north-west, this was the only 
English mission in the Empire. It was contemplated as 
a niiasioa to the Mohammedans, but in this respect 
has been an apparent failure. It is true that much pre- 
judice has lieen disarmed, and, as I have heard from 
8ome leading Mohammedans, Dr. Brace's zeal and good 
works have won their respect. A large part of the Bible 
has been translated into Persian and very widely 
circulated through the adjacent country by means of 
colporteurs of the British and Foreign Bible Society, His 
preaching of Christianity is listened to respectfully, and 
even with interest, wherever he itinerates, and Moslems 
daily call on him, and show much friendhness, but the 
results, as results are usually estimated, are nil — that is, 
no Mohammedans openly profess Christianity. 

There is actual though not legal toleration, but 
Moslem children may not attend a mission school, and 
a Moslem who becomes a Christian loses his means of 
living, and probably his life is sacriiiued to fanaticism. 

In consequence of these difUculties, and certain 
encouragements in another direction, the oslaisibU work 
of the mission is among Armenians. Dr. Bruce has not 
been afraid of incurring the stigma of being a proselytiser, 
and has a large congregation of Armenians worshipping 
after the English form, ninety-four being communicants 
of the Church of England. On Easter Eve there was an 
evening Communion, and the great row of women kneel- 
ing at the rail in the pure white robes which cover them 
from head to foot, and then moving back to their places 
in the dim light, was very picturesque and beautiful. 

Good works have been added one after another, till 
the mission is now a very large establishment. The 
C. M. S. has been liberal to this, its only Persian agency, 
and Dr. Bruce, having private means, has generously 
expended them largely on missionary work in Julfa. 



850 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter xn 

The cliief features of the compounda are the church, 
which is both simple and ecclesiastical in it'^ exterior aiid 
interior, and the library adjoining it, where Dr. Bruce works 
at the translation of the Old Testament into Persian and 
the revision of the New, aided by a viwnshi, and where 
through much of the day he is receiving Moslems, some 
of whom come to inquire into Christianity, others for 
religious disputations, and a third and numerous class out 
of mere friendliness, Tlie latter are generally invited 
into the Mission House, and are regaled with coffee and 
kaliam, in orthodox Persian fashion. Among the latter 
visitors has been the Amir-i-Panj, who cajne to ask me 
to call on his wife, accompanied by a general of cavalry, 
whose name I cannot spell, and who speaks French remark- 
ably well. 

Among the other buildings are those of the Medical 
Mission, which include a roomy courtyard, where the 
animals which carry the patients are tethered, rooms for 
the doctor, a well-arranged dispensary and constilting- 
room, with waiting-rooms for both sexes, and rooms above 
in which serious surgical cases are received for treatment, 
and where at present there are eleven patients, although 
just now there is no European doctor, and they are being 
treated by the native assistants, most kindly helped by 
Dr. Scully of the telegraph staff. - This hospital and 
dispensary are largely taken advantage of by Moslems, 
who highly appreciate this form of Christian benevolence. 

The boys' school, with 205 pupils, has been a great 
benefit to Julfa. The head-master, Mr. Johannes, was 
educated in England and was formerly a master of the 
Nassik School in India, This school provides the 
education of one of our best middle-class schools, and the 
teaching ia thorough. Smalterbig would be infinitely 
despised by teachers and pupils. In this thorough fashion 
Latin, Fi-ench, the first four books of Euclid, and algebra 



LETTEEXII MISSIONARY LUXURY 251 

are taught to the yoiingt men of the upper form. The 
boys have a large pkygroiuid, with a great tank for 
bathing, and some of the equipments of a gymnasium, a 
vaulting pole, parallel bars, etc. 

The girls' schools, containing 100 girls, have their own 
courtyard, and they need enlarging, though the process 
has been more than once repeated. Mrs. Aidin, an Eng- 
lish teacher, is at their head, and exercises that strong 
influence which love and firmness give. The girls are a 
mass of red, a cool red, without yellow, and when they 
disperse they enliven the Julfa alleys with their carna- 
tion dresses and pure white chadars. The education is , 
solid and suitable, and special attention is given to needle- 
work. 

Besides these there is an orphanage, begun for the 
benefit of those whose parents died in the famine, in 
which are twenty boys. Outside are many other works, 
a Bible House, from which colporteurs at intervals pro- 
ceed on journeys, a Young Men's Christian Association, or 
something like it, eta etc. 

Now as to the Mission House itself, which has to 
accommodate Dr., Mrs., and Miss Bruce, Mr. Carless, a 
clerical missionary, and two English lady miBsionariea. 
So much has been written lately about the " style of 
living " of missionaries, their large houses, and somewhat 
unnecessary comfort in general, that I am everywhere 
specially interested in investigating the subject, having 
formed no definite opinion on the question whether living 
as natives or living as Europeans is the more likely mode 
of producing a salutary impression. 

The Mission House here is a native building, its 
walls and ceilings simply decorated with pale brown 
arabesques on a white ground. There are a bedroom and 
parlour, with an ante-room between giving access to both 
from the courtyard, a storeroom, and a kitchen. Across 



268 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter iii 

the court are servanta' quarters and a guest-room for 
natives. Above these, reached by an outside stair, are a 
good room, occupied by Mr. Carlesa as study and bedroom, 
and one small guest-room. Another stair leads to two 
rooms above some of the girls' school premises, having 
enclosed alcoves used as sleeping and dressing rooms. 
These are occupied by two ladies. One room serves aa 
eating-room for the whole mission party, at preseut sis 
in number, and as drawing-room and workroom. Books, 
a harmonium, Persian rugs on the floor, and just enough 
furniture for use constitute its " luxury," 

There are two servants, both of course men, and a]l 
the ladies do some housework. At present the only 
horse is the dispensary horse, a beast of such rough and 
uneven paces that it is a penance to ride liim. The 
food is abundant, well cooked, and very simple 

The life, all round, is a veiy busy one. Visitors are 
never refused at any hour. The long flat mud roofs from 
which one can see the gardens and the hills are used for 
exercise, otlierwise some of the party would never have 
anything better than mud walls for their horizon, and 
life in courtyards is rather depressing for Europeans. I 
have told facts, and make no comments, and it must be 

remembered that both Dr. Bruce and Miss V a lady 

of rare devotion who has lately arrived,' are to a certain 
extent " honorary " missionaries, and have the means, if 
they had the desire, of surrounding themselves with 
comforts. 

This is about the twenty-third mission circle with 
which I have become acquainted during the last eight 
months, and I see in nearly all the same difficulties, 
many of them of a nature which we can hardly realise at 
home. 

' A ftw noeka later she died, hex life sacrificed, I think, lo ovet-Oaij 
of a ditlicult laogaage, and tlie neglect of fresti air 



tTTTER 311 FEJLALE MISSIONARIES 263 

Women coming to the East as missionaries are by far 
the greatest sufferers, especially if they are young, for 
Eastern custom, which in their position cannot be defied 
with advantage, limits free action and abridges all the 
comforts of independence. Thus a woman cannot take 
a walk or a ride or go to a house without a trusty 
man-servant in attendance on her, and this is often 
inconvenient, so she does not go out at all, contenting 
herself with a walk on the roof or in the courtyard. 

The wave of enthusiasm on which a lady leaves her 
own country soon spends its force. The interest which 
has centred round her for weeks or even months is left 
behind. The enthusiastic addresses and farewell meetings, 
the journey "up the country" with its excitement and 
novelties, and the cordial welcome from the mission circle 
to which she is introduced, soon become things of the 
past The circle, however kind, has its own interests and 
work, and having provided her with a TiMt/wAt, necessarily 
goes on its own way more or le-ss, and she is left to face 
the fearful difficulties of languages with which ours has 
no affinity, in a loneliness which is all the more severely 
felt because she is usually, for a time at least, one 
nominally of a family circle. 

Unless she is a doctor or nurse she can do nothing 
till she has learned the language, and the difficulty of 
learning is increased by the loss of the flexible mind and 
retentive memory which are the heritage of extreme youth. 
The temptation i5 to "go at it" violently. Then come the 
aching head, the loss of sleep, the general lassitude and 
nervousness, and the self-questionings as to whether she 
■was right in leaving her fruitful work in England. 

Then, instead of realising the truth of the phrases used 
at home — " multitudes flocking as the doves to their win- 
dows" — "fields white unto the harvest," etc. — she finds 
that the work instead of seeking her has to be made by 



8B4 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettbr sii 

her most laboriously, and oftentimes the glowing hope 
of telling of the Redeemer's love and death to throngs of 
eager and receptive listeners is fulfilled in the drudgery 
of teaching sewing and the rudiments of EugliBh during 
the first year. 

It is just this first year under which many women 
Bucoumb. Then how many of the failings and weak- 
nesses of the larger world must be epitomised in a 
mission group exposed, aa Mr. Heyde of Kyelang feel- 
ingly said, " to the lowering infiuence of daily conucl 
with a courteous and non-repulsive Heathenism and 
Mohammedanism " ! Missionaries are not Ukely to possess, 
as they certainly are the last to claim, superior sanctity, 
and the new-comer, dreaming of a circle in all respects 
consecrated, finds herself among frictions, strong diflet- 
ences as to methods of working, not always gently ex- 
pressed, and possible jealousies and criticisms, and an 
exaggeration of the importance of trifles, natural where 
large events are rare. A venerable American missionary in 
Turkey said. " Believe me, the greatest trial of mission- 
aries is mission aiies." 

The small group is frequently destitute of social re- 
sources outside itself, it Js cut off from friendly visits. 
services, lectures, music, new books, news, and the many re- 
creative influences which all men regard as innocent. The 
life-work seems at times thrown away, the heat, the flies, 
and the mosquitos are depressing and exhausting, and in 
the case of young women, especially till they can use the 
language colloquially, there is little if any outside move- 
ment. Is it wonderful that supposed shglits, tiffs, criti- 
cisms which would bo utterly brushed away if a good 
walk in the open or a good gallop were possible, shoidd 
be brooded over till they attain a magnitude which 
embitters and depresses life ? ' 

A man constantly finds the first year or two very 



lETTER 5U MISSIONARY REQUISITES 265 

trying till he has his tools — the language — at command, 
and even men at times rub each other the wrong way, but 
a man can take a good walk or a solitary gallop, or better 
Btill, a week of itinerating among the villages. People 
speak of the dangers and privations of missionary life. I 
think that these are singularly over-estimated. But the 
trials wliich I have alluded to, and which, with the hot 
climates and insufficient exercise, nndennine the health 
of very many female missionaries, cannot be exaggerated, 
and demand our deep sympathy. 

I do not think that the ordinary pious woman, the 
successful and patient worker in district visiting, Bible 
classes, mothers' meetings, etc., is necessarily suited to be 
a foreign missionary, but that a lieart which is a well- 
apring of human love, and a natural " enthusiasm of 
humanity " are required, as well as love to the Master,' 
the last permeating and sanctifying the others, and giving 

them a pereimiai freshne-ss. Fancy G, G grumbling 

and discontented and magnifying unpropitious trifles, when 
her lieart goes out to every Chinawoman she sees in a 
perfect passion of love P 

With the medical missionary, whether man or woman, 
the case is different. The work seeks the worker even 
Ibefore he is ready for it. claims him, pursues him, absorbs 
tiin, and he is powerful to heal even where he is im- 
'yotent to convert 

Theu aenCeiices were written nesrl; n year ago, but nuuiy subgequeat 
Tiaita to raiesiona have only coiifinned my strong visw of the very trying 
Batiu« of at Icut tbe early period ol a. lady ruiaaiouBry's life in tba Eut, 
and of tlie conatant failure of henltb which it produces ; of the great 
necessity there is for iniMion boards to lay down some getiernl rules of 
hygiene, which shsU indnde the duty of riding on bDneback, for more 
rigorous requirements of vigorous pkyaiqiu in those sent out, and above, 
•11, that the manriiJ chaToettriiitia ot ihosK who are chosen to bti "epistles 
~ Christ " in the East shall be saeb as will not only mtDrally and speei- 
mend the Gospel, but will stand the wear and strain of djflicalt 



BOe JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctter iu 

I have been to the hospital to see a woman from Uie 
Kuhrud mountains, wlio was brought here to undergo an 
operation. She had spent all her living on native 
physicians without result, and her husband has actually 
sold his house to get money to give his wife a last chance 
of recovery. Fifteen years ago this man nearly took Dr. 
Bnice's life. Now, he saya, " The fruits of Christianity 
are good." 

Daily the " labyrinth of alleys " becomes denser with 
leafage, and the sun is hot enough to make the shade 
very pleasant, while occasional showers keep the greenery 
fresh. Indeed it is warm enough in my room to make 
the cool draught from the badglr very pleasant. These 
wind-towers are a feature of all Persian cities, breaking 
the monotony of the flat roofs. 

Letters can he sent once a week from Isfahan, and 
there is another opportiinity very safe and much taken 
advantage of, the " Telegraph chapar" a British official 
messenger, who rides up and down between Bushire and 
Tib ran at stated intervals. The Persian post is a 
wretched institution, partaking of the general corruption 
of Persian officialism, and nowhere, unless registered, are 
letters less safe than in Tihran.' I shall send this, 
scrappy as it is, as I may not be here for another week's 
mail. I. L. 1 

' Nearlf all my non- registered letters to England fiiiled to reach U» 





JULFA AMUSEMENTS 



LETTEK XIII 

Jolt A, AprU 29. 

Each day has been completely filled up since I wrote, 
and this ia probably the last here. 5Iy dear old Cabul 
tent, a shiddari, also Indiau, and a servants' teiit made 
here on a. plan of my own, are pitched in one of the 
compounds to exercise the servants in the art, and it 
really looks like going after many delays. 

A few festivities have broken the pleasant monotony 
of life in this kindly and hospitable house — dinner parties, 
European and Armenian ; a picnic on the Kuh Sufi, from 
which there is a very fine panoramic view of the vast 
plain and its surrounding mountains, and of the immense 
ruina of Isfahan and Julfa, with the shrunken remains of 
both ; and a " church picnic." 

From Kuh Sufi is seen how completely, and with a 
Bharp line of definition, the arid desert bounds the green 
oasis of cultivated and irrigated gardens which surround 
the city, and which are famous for the size and luscioua- 
ness of their fruit. From a confusion of ruinous or ragged 
walls of mud, of mined and modem houses standing com- 
placently among heaps of rubbish, and from amidst a 
greenery which redeems the scene, the blue tiled dome 
of the Masjid-i-Shali, a few minarets, and the great dome 
of the Medresseh, denuded of half its tiles, rise conspicu- 
ously. Long lines of mud streets and caravanserais, 
gaunt in their ruin, stretch into the desert, and the 
VOL I S 



258 JOURSEYS IN PERSIA umui im 

city oucc boasting of 650,000 inhabitants and a splendid 
court survives with a population of less than 80,000 at 
the highest estimate. 

The " church picnic " was held in a scene of decay, but 
260 people, with all the women but three in red, enlivened 
it It was in the grounds of the old palace of Haft 
Uast, in wliich Fatteh Ali Shah died, close to cue of the 
three remarkable bridges of Isfahan, the Pul-i-K«jn. 
These bridges are magnificent Their construction is 
most peculiar, and their roadways being flat they are 
almost unique iu Persia. 

Tiie Pul-i-Kajii, though of brick, has stone piers of im- 
mense sise, which are arched over so as to form a level 
causeway. On this massive structure the upper bridge is 
built, comprising a double series of rooms at each pier 
vrith doorways overlooking the river, and tJiere are stair- 
cases and rooms also in the upper piers. 

Tlie Chahar Bagh bridge is also quaint and magnificent, 
with its thirty-three arches, some of them very large, ite 
corridors for foot passengers, and chambers above each 
pier, each chamber having three openings to the river. 
These bridges have a many-storied look, from theh 
innumerable windows at irregular altitudes, and form a 
grand approach to the city. 

As at lirat, so now at last the most impressive tiling to 
me about the Zainderud next to its bridges is the extent 
to which rinsing, one of the processes of dyeing, is carried 
on upon its shingle flats. Isfahan dyed fabrics are famous 
and beautiful, heavy cottons of village make and un- 
bleached cottons of Manchester make being brought here 
to be dyed and printed. 

There is quite a population of dyers, and now that 
the river is fairly low, many of them have camped for 
the season in little shelters of bnishwood erected on the 
gravel banks. For fully half-a-mile these banks are 



LETTER XIII ISFAHAN DYERS 

covered with the rinsers of dyed and printed 
and with mighty heaps of their cottons. Hundreds of 
pieces after the rinsing are laid closely together to dry, 
indigo and turquoise hlue, hrown and purple madder. 
Turkey red and saffron predomioatiug, a vile aniline 
colour showing itself here and there. Some of the 
HDialler dyers have their colour vats by the river, hut 
most of the cotton is brought from Isfahan, ready dyed, 
on donkeys' backs, with the rinsers in attendance. 

Along the channels among the shingle banks are rows 
of old milbtones, and during much of the day a rinser 
stands in front of each up to his knees in water. His 
methods are rough, and the cotton must be good which 
stands his treatment. Taking in his hands a piece of 
soaked half-wrung cotton, from fifteen to twenty yards long, 
he folds it into five feet and bangs it on the millstone 
with all his might, roaring a tuneless song all the time, 
till be fails from fatigue. The noise is tremendous, and 
there will be more yet, for the river is not nearly at its 
lowest point. When the piece has had the water beaten 
out of it a boy spreads it out on the gravel, and keeps it wet 
by dashing water over it, and then the process of beating 
is repeated. The coloured spray lising from each mill- 
stone in the bright sunshine is very pretty. Each rinser 
has his watchdog to guard the cottons on the hank, and 
between the banging, splashing, and singing, the harking 
of the dogs and tlie shouts of the boys, it is a noisy 
and cheery scene. 

I have heard that certain unscrupulous English 
makers were in the habit of sending " loaded " cottons 
here, but tliat the calico printers have been a match for 
them, for the calico printer weighs his cloth before he 
buys it, wE^hes and dries it, and then weighs it again. 
A man must " get up very early " if he means to cheat a 
Persian. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LEWBtt iiii 

Tlie patterns and colours are beautiful. Quilts, " table- 
cloths " (for use on the floor), and ckadars are often things 
of exquisite beauty. Indeed I have yielded to temptation, 
and to gratify my own tastes have bought some beautiful 
"table-clotha " for Baklitiari women, printed chiefly in 
indigo and brown madder on a white ground. 

The temptations are great. I really need many 
things botli for my own outfit and for presents to the 
Bakhtiaris, and pedlars come every day and unpack their 
tempting bundles in the small verandah. No Europeans 
and no women of the upper classes can enjoy the delights 
in Persia, consequently the pedlar is a 
/ institution. 

Here they are of the humbler sort. They have 
learned that it is useless to display rich Turkestan and 
Feraghau carpets, gold and silver jewellery, inlaid arms, 
atufis worked with gold tliread, or any of the things 
M'hich tempt the travelling Feringhi, so they bring all 
sorts of common fabrics, printed cambrics, worthless 
woollen stufls, and the stout piece cottons and ex- 
quisitely-printed cotton squares of Isfalian. 

At almost any hour of the day a salaaming creature 
squatting at the door is seen, caressing a big bundle, 
which on seeing you he pats in a deprecating manner, 
looks up appealiugly, declares that he is your " sacrifice," 
and that with great trouble and loss he has got just 
the thing the l-hanum wants. If you hesitate for one 
moment the bundle is opened, and on his first visit he 
invariably shows flaring Manchester cottons first; but if 
you look and profess disgust, he produces cottons printed 
here, strokes them lovingly, and asks double tljeir value 
for them. You offer something about half. He recedes 
and you advance till a compromise is arrived at represent- 
ing the fair price. 

But occasionally, as about a table-cloth, if they see 



lETrEft sin A VISIT IN ISFAHAN 261 

that you admire it very much but will not give the price 
asked, they swear by Allah that they will not abate a 
fraction, pack up their bundle, and move off in well- 
simulated indignation, probably to return the next day 
to offer the article on jour own terms. Mrs. Bruce has 
done the bargaining, and I have been only an amused 
looker-on. 1 should prefer doing without things to the 
worry and tedium of the process of buying them. 

The higher class of pedlara, such as those who visit 
the andaru.7ts of the rich, go in couples, with a donkey or 
servant to carry their bundles. 

I mentioned that the Amir-i-Panj had called and had 
asked me to visit liis wife. I sent a message to say that 
my entrance into Isfahan had been so disagreeable that 
I should be afraid to pass through its gates again, to 
which he replied that he would take care that I met 
with no incivility. So an afternoon visit was arranged, 
and he sent a splendid charger for me, one of the finest 
horses I have seen in Persia, a horse for Mirza Yusuf, 
and an escort of six cavalry soldiers, which was increased 
to twelve at the city gate. The horse I rode answered 
the description — "a neck clothed with thunder," — he 
was perfectly gentle, but his gait was that of a creature 
too proud to touch the earth. It was exhilarating to be 
upon such an animal. 

The cavalry men rode dashing animals, and wore 
white Astrakan high caps, and the cortige quite filled 
up the narrow alley where it waited, and as it passed 
through the Chahar Bagh and the city gate, with much 
prancing and clatter, no " tongue wagged " either of 
dervish or urchin. 

At the entrance to the Amir's house I was received 
by an aide-de-camp and a number of soldier-servants, and 
was " conducted " iuto a long room opening by many 
windows npon a beautiful garden full of peach blossom, 



263 JOURNEVS IN PERSIA lixter siii 

violets, and irises; the table was covered with verj' pretty 
confectiouery, including piJes of gaz, a favourite sweet- 
meat, made of manna which is chiefly collected within 
eighty miles of Isfahan. Coffee was sei^'ed in little caps 
in filigree gold receptacles, and then the Amir-i-Panj 
appeared in a white uniform, with a white lambskin cap, 
and asked " permission to have the honour of accom- 
panying me to the andaran." 

Persian politeness ia great, and the Amir, though I 
think he is a Turk and not a Persian, is not deficient in it. 
Such phrases as " My house is purified by your presence, 
I live a thousand years in this visit," etc., were freely used. 

This man, who receives from all a very high char- 
acter, and whom Moslems speak of as a "saint," is the 
most interesting Moslem I have met. In one sense a 
thoroughly religious man, he practises all the virtues 
which he knows, almsgiving to the extent of self-denial, 
without distinction of creed, charity in word and deed, 
trutli, purity, and justice. 

I had been much prepossessed in his favour not only 
from Dr. Brace's high opinion, of him hut by the un- 
bounded love and reverence which my interpreter has for 
bim. Mirza Yusuf marched on foot from Bushire to 
Isfahan, without credentials, an alien, and penniless, and 
this good man hearing of him took him into his bouse. 
and treated him as a welcome guest till a friend of his, a 
Moslem, a general in the Persian army, also good and 
generous, took bim to Tihran, where he remained as his 
guest for some mouths, and was introduced into the best 
Persian society. From him I learned bow beautiful and 
pure a life may be even in a con'upt nation. When he 
bowed to kiss the Amirs hand, with grateful affection in 
Ids i'ace, his " benefactor," as he always calls bim, turned 
to me and said, " He is to me as a dear son, God will be 
with him." 



LETTER SOI AN ISFAHAN ANDARUN 263 

The garden is well laid out, and will soon be full of 
flowers. The Amir seemed to love them paasionately. 
He said that they gave rest and joy, and are " the fringes 
of the garment of God." He could not cut them, he said, 
" Their beauty is in their completeness from root to 
petals, and cutting destroys it." 

A curtained doorway in the high garden wall, where 
the curtains were held aside by servants, leads into the 
court of tlie aiidarun, where flowers again were in the 
ascendant, and vines concealed the walls. The sou, a 
small boy, met us and kissed my hand. Mirza had told 
me that he had never passed through tiiia wall, and 
had never seen the ladies, hut when I proposed to leave 
liim ontside, the Amir said he would be welcome, that he 
wished for much conversation, and for his wife to hear 
about the position and education of women in England. 

The beautiful reception-room looked something like 
home. The pure white walls and honeycombed ceiling 
are touched and decorated with a pale shade of blue, and 
the ground of the patterns of the rich carpets on the floor 
is in the same delicate colour, which is repeated in the 
brocaded stuffs with which the divans are covered. A 
half-length porti'ait of the Amir in a sky-blue uniform, 
with his breast covered with orders, harmonises with the 
general " scheme " of colour. The laki-kalts in the walls 
are utilised for vases and other objecta in alabaster, jade, 
and bronze. A tea-table covered with sweetmeats, a 
tea equipage on the floor, aud some chairs completed 
the furnishing. 

The Amir stood tCl his wife came in, and then asked 
permission to sit down, placing Mirza, who discreetly 
lowered his eyes when the lady entered, aud never raised 
them again, on the floor. 

She is young, tall, and somewhat stout She was 
much rouged, and her eyes, to which the arts of the 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

toilet could add no additional beauty, were treated 
with l-old, and the eyebrows artificially extended. She 
wore fine gray socks, white skin-fitting lights, a black 
aatin skirt, or rather flounce, embroidered in gold, bo 
houffantc with flounces of starched crinoline under it that 
when she sat down it stood out straight, not even touch- 
ing the chair. A cheniise of spangled gauze, and a pale 
blue gold-embroidered zouave jacket completed a costume 
which is dress, not clothing. ITio somewhat startling 
effect was toned down by a beautiful Constantinople silk 
gauze veil, sprigged in pale pink and gold, absolutely 
transparent, which draped Iier from head to foot 

I did not get away in less than two houra The 
Amir and Mirza, used to each other's modes of expression, 
found no difficulties, and Mirza being a man of educatjon 
as well as intelligence, thought was conveyed as easily as 
fact. The lady kept her fine eyes lowered except when 
her husband spoke to her. 

The chief topics were the education and position of 
women in England, religion, politics, and the future of 
Persia, and on all the Amir expressed himself with a 
breadth and boldness which were astonishing. How far 
the Amir has gone in the knowledge of the Christian 
faith I cannot say, nor do I feel at liberty to repeat his 
most interesting thoughts. A Sunni, a liberal, desirmg 
complete religious liberty, absolutely tolerant to the Babi*, 
grateful for the kindness shown to some of them by the 
British J.*gation, and for the protection still given to them 
at the C. M. S. house, admiring Dr. Bruce's persevering 
work, and above all the Medical Mission, which he regards 
as ■' the crown of beneficence " and " the true imitation of 
the life of the Great Prophet, Jesus," all he said showed 
a strongly religious nature, and a philosophical mind 
much given to religious thought. " All true religions aim 
at one thing," he said, " to make the heart and life pure." 



LCTTBR xiii THE POSITION OF WOMEN 



265 



He asked a gond deal about my travels, and special 
objects of interest iu travelling, and was surprised when 
I told him that I nearly always travel aloue ; but after a 
moment's pause he said, " I do not understand that you 
were for a moment alone, for you had everj-where the 
love, companionship, and protection of God." 

He regards as the needs of Persia education, religious 
liberty (the law which punishes a Moslem with death for 
embracing Christianity is still on the statute-book), roads, 
and railroads, and asked nie if I had formed any opinion 
on the subject. I said that it appeared to me that security 
for the earnings of labour, and equal laws for rich and 
poor, administered by incorruptible judges, should accom- 
pany education. I nmcli fear that he thinks incorruptible 
judges a vision of a dim future ! 

The subject of the position of women in England 
and the height to which female education is now carried 
interested him extremely. He wished his wife to under- 
Btand everything I told him. The success of women in 
examinations in art, literature, music, and other things, 
and the political wisdom and absolutely constitutional rule 
of Queen Victoria, all interested him greatly. He aaked 
if the women who took these positions were equally good 
as wives and mothers ? I could only refer again to 
Queen Victoria. An Oriental cannot understand the 
position of unmarried women with us, or dissociate it 
from religious vows, and the Amir heard with surprise that 
a very large part of the philanthropic work which is done 
in England is done by women who either from accident 
or design have neither the happiness nor the duties of 
married life. He hopes to see women in Persia educated 
and emancipated from the trammels of certain customs, 
" but," he added, " all reform in this direction niu.st come 
slowly, and grow naturally out of a wider education, if 
it is to be good and not hurtful." 



JOtlRNETS IK PERSIA 

He asked me what I slioutd like to see iu Isfahao, 
but when I mentioned the prison be said he should be 
ashamed to sliow it, and that except for political offences 
imprisoninent is not much resorted to, that Petsian 
justice is swift aiid severe — the bastinado, etc, not 
incarceration. 

Afterwards I paid a similar visit to the house of 
Mirza Yusufs otlier " henefactor," also a good and charit- 
able man, who, as he speaks French well, acted as inter- 
preter in the aiularan. 

A few days later the Amir-i-Panj, accompanied by 
General Faisarallah Khan, called on Dr. Bruce and od 
me, and showed liow very agreeable a morning visit might 
be made, and the following day the Amir sent the same 
charger and escort for me, and meeting him and Dr. 
Bruce in the Chahar Bagh, we visited the Mtdresseh. a 
combined mosque and college, and the armoury, where we 
were joined by two generals and were afterwards enter- 
tained at tea in the Standard Room, while a military 
band played outside. The Amir had ordered some 
artificers skilled iu the brass-work for which Isfahan is 
famous to exhibit their wares in one of the rooms at 
the armoury, and in every way tried to make the visit 
more agreeable than an inspection of the jail ! He 
advises me not to wear a veil in the Bakhtiari country, 
and to be "as European as possible." 

The armoury, of which he has had the organising, does 
not fall within ray province. There are many large 
rooms with all the applinnces of war in apparently 
perfect order for the equipment of 5000 men. 

With equal brevity I pass over the Mtdresseh, whose 
silver gates and exquisite tiles have been constantly 
described. Decay will leave little of this beautiful 
building in a few years. The tiles of the dome, which 
can be seen for miles, are falling oET, and even in the 



MTTER XIII ENGLISH TRADE IN ISFAHAN 267 

halls of instruction and in the grand moaque under the 
dome, which are completely lined and roofed bj' tiles, the 
making of some of which is a lost art, one may augur 
the approach of ruin from the loss or breakage here and 
there. In the rooms or cells occupied by the students, 
who study either theology or law, there are some very 
fine windows executed in the beautiful tracery common 
to Persia and Kashmir, but the effect of beauty passing 
into preveutihie decay is very mournful. 

Isfahan too I barely notice, for the best of all reasons, 
that I have not seen it ! Though a fourth part of it is 
in ruins, and its population ia not an eighth of what it 
was in the days of Shah Abbas, it is a fairly thriving 
commercial emporium with an increasing British tmde. 
Tndeed here Russian commercial influence may be said 
to cease, and that of England to become paramount 
It is the paradise of Manchester and Glasgow cottons ; 
woollen goods come from Austria and Germany, glass 
from Austria, crockery from England, candles and kerosene 
represent Kussia, Our commercial supremacy in Isfahan 
cannot be disputed. I am almost tired of hearing of it. 
Opium, tobacco, carpets from the different provinces, 
and cotton and rice for native consumption, are the chief 
exports. Opium is increasingly grown round the city, 
and up the course of the Zainderud. Of the 4500 cases 
exported, worth £90 a case, three-fourths go to China. 
Its cultivation is so profitable and has increased ao 
rapidly to the neglect of food crops that the Prince 
Governor has issued an order that one part of cereals 
shall be sown for every four of the opium poppy. 

The cotton in the bazars, through which one can walk 
I under cover for between two and three miles, is of the 
I best quality, owing to the successful measures taken by 
I the cahco printers to defeat the roguery of the cheating 
F manufacturers. All the European necessaries and many 



268 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter kiii 

of the luxuries of life are obtaiaable, and tLe Isfahan 
bazara are the busiest in Persia except those of Tabriz. 

It is oDly fair to this southern capittil to say that if one 
can walk over two miles under the roofs of its fine 
bazars, one can ride for many miles among its ruins, 
which have desolation without stateJiness, and arc chiefly 
known for the production of the excellent wild asparagus 
which is used lavishly on European tables at this seasoa 

The " Persian Versailles," the Palace of Forty Pillata, 
each pillar formed of shafts enriched with colour and 
intricate work, and resting on a marble lion, the shaking 
Minarets, the Masjid-i-Shah with its fine dome of pea- 
cock-blue tiles, all falling into premature decay, remain 
to attest its former greatness ; the other noble palaces, 
mosques, caravanserais, and Medresaeha are ruinous, the 
superb pleasure gardens are overgrown with weeds or 
are used for vetches and barley, the tanks are foul or 
filled up, the splendid plane trees have been cut down 
for fuel, or are dragging out a hollow existence — every 
one, as elsewhere in Persia, destroys, no one restores. 
The armoury is the one exception to the general law of 
decay. 

Yet Isfahan covered an area of twenty-four miles in 
circumference, and with its population of 650,000 souls 
was until the seventeenth century one of the most magni- 
ficent cities of the East Its destruction last century by 
an Afghan conqueror, who perpetrated a fifteen days' 
massacre, and the removal of the court to Tihran, have 
reduced it to a mere commercial centre, a " distributing 
point," and as such, its remains may take a new lease of 
life. It has a newspaper called the Farlianrf, whicU 
prints little bits of news, chiefly personal Its editor 
moves on European lines so far ns to have "interviewed" 
me! 

Tliere are manufactures in Isfahan other than the 



LETTER xiir THE "CITY OF WATERS" 269 

successful printing aud dyeing of cottons ; viz., eartlieu- 
ware, china, brasa-work, velvet, satin, tents, coarse cottons, 
glass, awords, guns, pistols, jewellery, writing paper and 
envelopes, silk brocades, satins, gunpowder, bookbinding, 
gold thread, etc. 

The plateau on which Isfahan stands, about seventy 
nailes from east to west and twenty from north to south, 
and enclosed by high mountains with a striking outline, 
lies 5400 feet above the sea. The city has a most salu- 
brious climate, and is free from great extremes both of 
heat and cold. The Zainderud, on whose left bank it is 
situated, endows much of the plain with fertility on its 
way to its undeserved doom in a partially-explored awamp. 

This Christian town, called a suburb, though it is 
really two and a half miles from Isfahan, is a well-built 
and well-peopled nucleus. It is not mixed up with 
ruins as Isfahan ia. They have a region to themselves 
chiefly in the direction of the Kuh Sufi. My impression 
of it after a month is that it is clean and comfortable- 
looking, Mr. Curzon's is that it is " squalid." I prefer 
mine I 

It is a " city of waters." Streams taken from a 
higher level of the Zainderud glide down nearly all its 
lanes, shaded by pollard mulberries, ash, elm, and the 
" sparrow -tongue " willow, which makes the best firewood, 
and being " planted by the rivers of water," grows so fast 
that it bears lopping annually, and besides affording fuel 
supplies the twiga which are used for roofing such rooms 
as are not arched. 

The houses, some of which are more than three 
centuries old, are built of mud bricks, the roofs are 
usually arched, and tlie walls are from three to five feet 
thick. All possess planted courtyards and vineyards, and 
gardens into which channels are led from the streams in 
the streets. Theae streams serve other purposes : continu- 



JOURNEYS IN PERSU 



LETTEB Xni 



ally a group of Amieniao women may be seen washing 
their clothes in them, while others are drinking or draw- 
ing water just below. The lanes are about twenty feel 
wide and have narrow rough causeways on both sidea 
of the water-channel. It is diSicuIt on horseback to 
pass a foot passenger without touching him in some of 
them. 

Great picturesqueness is given to these leafy lanes by 
the companies of Armenian women in bright red dressea 
and pure white rolws, slowly walking through them at 
all hours of daylight, visions of bright eyes and rosy 
cheeks. I have never yet seen a soiled white robe ! 
Long blank mud walls, low gateways, an occasional row 
of mean shops, open porches of churches, dim and cool, 
and an occasional European on foot or horseback, and 
groups of male Armenians, whose dress so closely 
approaches the European as to be without interest, and 
black-robed priests gliding to the churches are all that is 
usually to be seen. It sounds dull, perhaps. 

Many of the houses of the rich Armenians, some of 
which are now let to Europeans, are extremely beautiful 
inside, and even those occupied by the poorer classes, in 
which a single lofty room can be rented for twopence a 
week, are very pretty and appropriate. But no evidence of 
wealth is permitted to be seen from the outside. It is 
only a few years since the Armenians were subject to 
many disabilities, and they have even now need to walk 
warily lest they give offence. As, for instance, an 
Armenian was compelled to ride an a.s3 instead of a 
horse, and when that restriction was relaxed, he had to 
show his inferiority by dismounting from his horse before 
entering the gates of Isfahan. 

They were not allowed to have bells on their churches, 
(at Easter I wished they had none still), but now the 
Egijlesiah Wang (the great church) has a fine campanile 



LETTEB xiii THE LASGUAOE OF GATES 271 

over 100 feet high in its inner court. The ancient mode 
of announcing the hours of worship is still afl'ectionately 
adhered to, however. It consists of drniuiniug with a 
mallet on a board hanging from two posts, and success- 
fully breaks the sleep of the neighbourhood for the daily 
service which begins before daylight 

The Armenians, like the rich Persians, prudently keep 
to the low gateways, wliich, with the absence of windows 
and all exterior ornament, give the lanes so mean an 
aspect, and tend to make one regard the beauty and even 
magnificence within with considerable surprise. 

In England a rich man, partly for his own delectation, 
and partly, if he he " the architect of his own fortune," 
to impose his position ocularly on liis poorer neighbours, 
displays his wealth in all ways and on most occasions. 
In Persia his chief pleasure must he to hoard it and con- 
template it, for any unusual display of it in equipages or 
furnishings is certain to bring down upon liim a " squeeze," 
at Tihran in the shape of a visit from the Shah with its 
inevitable consequences, and in the Provinces in that of 
a requisition from the governor. 

For a man to " enlarge his gates " is to court destruc- 

! tion. Poor men have low gates, which involve stooping, 

I to prevent rich men's servants from entering their houses 

I on horseback on disagreeable errands. Christian churches 

f have remarkably low doors elsewhere than in Julfa, to 

I prevent the Moslems from stabhng their cattle in them. 

Eich men aflect meau entrances in order not to excite the 

rapacity of officialism, according to the ancient proverb, 

" He that exalteth his gate seeketh destruction " (Proverbs 

I iviL 19). Only Eoyal gates and the gates of officials who 

I represent Eoyalty are high. 

The Armenian merchants have, like the Europeans, 
I their ofBces in Isfahan. The rest of the people get 
I their living by the making and selling of wine, keeping 



nt JOUBSEVS IN PERSIA letter im 

small filiops, making watches and jewellery, carpentering, 
in wliich tliey are very aldlful, and market-gardeuiiig ; 
they are thrifty and industrious, ami there is very little 
real poverty. 

The selling of wine does not conduce to the peace of 
Julfa. A mixture of sour wine and amJc, a coarse spirit, 
is very intoxicating, and Persians, when they do drink, 
drink till they are drunk, and tlie abominable concealel 
traffic in liquor with the Moslems of the town is apt 
to produce disgraceful brawls. 

Wine can be bought for fourpence a quart, bat the 
upper classes make their own, and it costs less than tJiis. 
AVines are both red and white, and one red wine is swil 
to be like good CliiantL The Armenians tipple and also 
get druuk, priests included. It is said that some of the 
jars used in fermenting are between 200 and 3O0 years 
old. 

The excellent education given in the C. AI. S. schools 
has had the effect of stimulating the Armenian schools, 
and of producing among the young men a large 
emigration to India, Batavia, Constantinople, and even 
England. Only the dullards as a rule remain in Julfo. 
Some rise high in Persian and even in Turkish employ- 
ment. 

The Armenian women are capital housewives and 
very industrious. In these warm evenings the poorer 
women sit outside tlieir houses in groups kuiltiug. 
The knitting of socks is a great industry, and a womau 
can earn 4s. a month by it, which is enough to live upon. 

In Julfa, and it may be partly owing to the presence 
of a European community, the Christians have nothing to 
complain of, and, so far as I can see, they are on terma of 
equality with the Persians. 

However, Isfahan ia full of religious intolerance which 
can easily be excited to frenzy, and the arrogance of the 



LKTTER ini THE BABIS 273 

TTiollahs has increased since the fall from almost regal 
state of the Zil-i-Siiltan, the Shah's eldest son, into the 
positioQ of a provincial governor, for he curhed them some- 
what, and DOW the restraint is removed. However, it ia 
f^ainst the Jews and the Bdbis, rather than the Christians, 
that their hostihty ia directed. 

A few weeks ago some Bdbis were peaceably return- 
ing to a neighbouring village, when they were attacked, 
and seven of their number were massacred under atrocious 
L oircumatances, the remainder taking refuge for a time in 
B the British Telegraph office. Several of both sexes who 
^^Mcaped are in concealment here in a room in the Hospital 
^BwnipCHiiid, one of them with a broken jaw. 
^H "the hiding of these Bdbis has given great umbrage to 
Hue bigots of Isfahan, though the Amir-i-Panj justified 
it on all grounds, and about the time I arrived it was 
said that a thousand city fanatics purposed to attack the 
mission premises. But at one of the mosques there is a 
mollak, who with Gamaliel-hke wisdom urged upon them 
"that if 300 Moslems were killed nothing would happen, 
but if a single European were killed, what then ?'" 

I cannot close this letter without a few words on the 
Armeniau churches, some of which I visited with Mr. 
and Dr. Aganoor, and others with Dr. Bruce. The cere- 
mony representing the washing of the disciples' feet on 
the Armenian Holy Thursday was a most magnificent one 
BB r^ards the antique splendour and extreme beauty of 
tiie vestments and jewels of the officiating bishop, but 

' I bkTB mitten notbing about this fast-in r^ieaaini; Bcct of tbe Bibia, 
partlj becsiua being a eecret sect, I doubt whetbrr the cloctrinca whicb 
nre anSered to l«ak out fomi renlly any part of its esoteric teiLohiug, and 
partly became those ICnropeuu wbo have studied tbe itdfru moat caudi Jlj 
are diametrically apposed in tbeir views of their tenets and practice, some 
holding that tiieir wipiistiouH ire aft«r a purer life, irhile others, and I 
think a majority, believe that their tenchings are eubvertive of morality 
Mid of the parity of domestic life. 

VOL. I T 



874 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 

the feet, which are washed in rose-water and anointed, 
are not, as in Koine, those of b*ggars, but of n6oph}'tes 
costumed in pure white. Incense, embroideries, crowds 
of white-robed women, and other accessories made the 
function an imposing one. 

The Cathedral, a part of the Monastery, has a narrow 
winding approach and a thick door, for ecclesiastics were 
not always as safe as they are now. In the outer court is 
tlie campanile before mentioned. The floor is paved with 
monumental slabs, and among the graves are those of 
several Europeans. IHles of logs look as if the Julfe 
carpenters seasoned their wood in this court ! 

The church is divided by a rail into two compartmenta. 
The dome is rich with beaten gold, and the dado is uf 
very fine tiles, which produce a striking effect. The 
embroideries and the carpets, some of which are worlb 
fabulous sums, are between two and tliree centuries old 
The vestments and ornaments of the priests are very 
fine, and suggest the attire of the Aaronic priesthood. 

It is a striking building, and tlie amount of gold and 
colour, toned into a certain harmony by time, produces a 
gorgeous effect. The outer compartment has a singular 
interest, for 230 years ago its walls were decorated 
with religious paintings, on a large scale, of events in 
Bible history, from the creation downwards. Some are 
copies, others original, and they are attributed to Italian 
artists. They are well worth careful study as represent- 
ing the conceptions which found favour among the 
Armenian Christians of that day. They are terribly 
realistic, but are certainly instructive, especially the 
illustrations of the miracles and parables. 

In one of the latter a man with a huge beam sticking 
out of one eye is represented as looking superciliously 
with the other at a man with an insignificant spike pro- 
jecting. The death of Dives is a horrible representation. 



LETTER sin PICTURES IN CHURCHES 275 

His aoul, in the likeness of a very small nude figure, is 
represented as escaping from the top of his head, and is 
being escorted to the entrance of the lower regions by 
a flight of small black devils. The idea of the bouI 
emerging from the top of the head is evidently borrowed 
from the Moslems. 

Our Lord is, I think, everywhere depicted as short, 
dark, and dark -haired, with eyebrows much curved, 
and a very long upper lip, without beauty or dignity, an 
ordinary Oriental workman. 

The picture of the Cathedral is an enormous canvas, 
representing the day when " before Him shall be gathered 
all nations." The three persons of the Trinity are there, 
and saints and angels are portrayed as worshipping, or 
as enjoying somewhat earthly but perfectly innocent 

I delights. 

[ In this the conception is analogous to those celebrated 
circular pictures in which the Buddhistic future is un- 
rolled, and which I last saw in the monasteries of 
Lesser Tibet. The upper or heavenly part is insigni- 
ficant and very small, while the torments of the lost in 

I the lower part are on a very large scale, and both the 

' devils and the nude human sufferers in every phase of 

V iLDguish have the appearance of life size. The ingenuity 

V of torment, however, is not nearly so great, nor are the 
so revolting as those which Oriental imagination 

has depicted in the Buddhist hells. A huge mythical 
monster represents the mouth of hell, and into his flaming 
and smoking jaws the impenitent are falling. Does any 
modem Armenian believe that any of those whose bones 

I lie under the huge blocks of stone in the ceraeteiy in the 

j red desert at the foot of Kuh Sufi have passed into " this 

L place of torment "? 

The other church which claims one's interest, though 

f -Dot used for worship, is that of St. George, the hero of the 



27G JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettee im 

fraudulent contract in bacon, as well as of tLe dragun 
fight, tu whom the AimeDians as well as ourselves render 
singular honour. 

This church is a great place for " miracles " of healing, 
and cells for the sick who come from a distance are 
freely provided. In a covered court are some large stones 
in a group, one of them evidently the capital of a columa 
Two of them have cavities at the top, and the sick kneel 
before them, and as the voluble women who were there 
told us, " they Grst pray to God and then to the stones," 
and finally pour water into these cavities and drink it 
The cure is either instantaneous or occurs at any time 
within fifteen daj^s, and in every case the patient heais 
the voice of St. George telling him to go home when it 
is complete. 

These stones, according to the legend told by the 
women and popularly believed by the uneducated, tool; 
it into their heads to come from Et^hmiadzin in 
Armenia, the residence of the Catkolicos, in one night, 
and deposited themselves where the church now stands. 
Seven times they were taken into Faraidan, eighty miles 
from Julfa. and as often returned, and their manifest pre- 
dilection was at last rewarded by a rest of centuries. 
There were a number of sick people waiting for healing, 
for which of course fees are bestowed. 

The Armenians, especially the women, pay grest 
attention to the externals of their religion. Some of its 
claims are very severe, such as the daily service before 
dayhght, winter and summer, and the long fasts, which 
they keep with surprising loyalty, i.e. among the poor in 
towns and in the villages. For at least one-sixth of the 
year they are debarred from the use of meat or even 
e^8, and are permitted only vegetable oils, fruits, vege- 
tables, and grain. Spirits !Un! wine, however, ore not 
prohibited. 



LETTEK SHI THE HOLY OIL 277 

I really believe that their passionate attachment to 
their venerable church, the oldest of all national churches, 
J3 fostered by those among them who have ceased to 
believe ita doctrines, as a necessity of national existence. 
I doubt very much whether the " Reformed " congrega- 
tions, which have been gathered out here and elsewhere, 
■would survive the withdrawal of foreign aid. Bather, I 
think, they would revert to the original type. 

Superstitions without number are mixed up with their 

k beliefs, and are countenanced by the priests. The meron 

} or holy oil used in baptism and for other purposes has 
the stamp of charlatanism upon it It ts made in 
EtchmiadKin. 

Rose leaves are collected in an immense vat, which is 
filled with water, and at a set time the monks and nuns 
form a circle round it, and repeat prayers till "fermenta- 
tion " begins. They claim that the so-called fermentation 
ia a miracle due to the prayers offered. Oil, probably 
attar of roses, rises to the surface, and this precious 
meron is sent to the Armenian churches throughout the 
world about once in four or five years. In Persia those 

[ vho bear it are received with an istikbtd or procession of 

f velcoma 

It is used not only in baptism and other rites but at 

[ the annual ceremony of washing the Cross at Christmas, 

\ when some of it is poured into the water and is drunk 
by the worshippers. In the villages they make a paste 
by mixing this water and oil with earth, -which is made 
into balls and kept in the houses for "luck." If a 
dog licks a bowl or other vessel, and thus renders it 

I unclean, rubbing it round with one of these balls restores 

I it to purity. 

At a village in i'araidan there ia an ancient New 

L Testament, reputed to be of the sixth century. To this 

I MS, people come on pilgrimage from all quarters, even 




S78 JOURNEVS IN PERSIA tirriB im 

from Fars, Tihran, and Armenia, to be healed of their- 
diseases, and they maive ofTerings to it, aud practically 
render it worship. 

To go aad pray on a newly-made grave ia a remedy 
for childlessness much resorted to by childless wives, 
When two boys fight, and one of them is hurt, or when 
any one is injured by a dog or by a tree falling, they 
wash the damaged person in water, and then throw the 
water over the Ixiy, dog, or tree which has been the causs 
of the injury, believing that lu this way the mischief 
is transferred. 

When any one is ill of fright and the cause is not 
known, the nuns come to the house, and pour wax into 
a basin of boiling water, noting the form it takes, such 
as a snake, a dog, or a frog. In a case lately they 
went out and killed a snake, for the thing whose forDt 
the wax takes ought to be killed ; but as this might often 
be difficult or unsuitable, they compromise the matter 
by throwing the water (not boiling, I hope) over tb# 
nearest dog or toad, or anything else which is supposedl 
to be the culprit. 

On the first Monday in Lent the women wash their 
' knitting needles for luck in a stream which rims through 
Julfa. The children educated in the Mission schools 
laugh at these and many other superstitions. 

The dress of the Armenian women is very showy, but, 
too much of a huddle. Red is the dominant colour, a 
carnation red with white patterns sprawling over iL 
They wear coloured trousers concealed by a long skirt 
The visible under-garment is a long, "shaped" dress of 
Turkey red. Over this is worn a somewhat scanty gowB 
of red and wliite cotton, open in front, and very short- 
waisted, and over this a plain red peliaae or outer gar- 
ment, often quilted, open in front, gashed up the side^ 
and falling below the knees. Of course this costume is 






ARMENIAN FEMALE COSTUME 



279 



liable to many modifications ia the way of material, and 
embroidered jackets, heavily trimmed with jewellery and 
the like. As fashion ia unchanging the acquisition and 
hoarding of garraents are carried to a great extent 

There are two marked features of Armenian dress, one, 
the massive silver girdle made of heavy chaaed-silver links 
four itichea long by two deep, often antique and always 
of antique design, which falls much below the waist in 
front, and is used to confine the ends of the white sheet 
which envelops an Armenian woman out of doors, so that 
it may hang evenly all round. Tlie other is a skull-cap 
of embroidered ailk or cloth, placed well back on the head 
above the many hanging plaits in which the hair is worn, 
with a black velvet coronet in front, from whicli among 
the richer women rows of coins depend. This, which is 
very becoming to the brilliant complexion and i 
face below it, is in its turn covered by a half handkerchief, 
and over this is gracefully worn, when not gracelessly 
clutched, a ckadar or drapery of printed cambric or 
muslin. A white band bound across tlie chin up to the 
lips suggests a broken jaw, and the tout ensemhU of the 
various wrappings of the head a perennial toothache. 
I. L. B. 



JOURNEVS IN PEKSIA 



LETTER XIV 



YOD will be tired of Julfa though I am not. I fully 
expected to have left it a fortnight ago, but imaToidable 
delays have occuned. My caravan and servauts started 
this morning, and I leave myself in a few hours. 

Upon my horse I have bestowed the suggestive 
name of Srew. He is fairly well-bred, big-headed, 
big-eared, small-bodied, bright bay, fine-coated, slightly 
flat-footed, and with his fore hoofs split in several places 
from the coronet nearly to the shoe. He is an un- 
doubted yabu, and has carried loads for many a day. 
He has a long stride, shies badly, walks very fast, canters 
easily, and at present shows no tendency to tumble 
down.' 

I have had pleasant rides alone, crossing the defi- 
nite dividing line between the desert and the oasis of 
cultivation and irrigation, watching the daily develop- 
ment of the various crops and the brief life of tlie wild 
flowers, creeping through the green fields on the narrow 
margins of irrigating ditches, down to the Pul-i-Kaju, 
and returning to the green lanes of Julfa by the 

' Screw nevar became i friend or companion, soarcelj a comrado, bat 

allowed plenty or pluck aud endurance, climbed and deiweiided hombls 

rook ladders over which a hqrae with a rider had never passed before, wo 

I steady in fords, and at the end of three and a linlf iDootliB of terere 

■ traTe1Un|{ and occaaion&l scarcity of foud waa in better condition thui 

Kwhenheleft Jul&. 



LBTTEB uv TWO INCIDENTS 281 

bright waters of the Zainderud crimsoning in the setting 
sun. 

For in the late cool and breezy weather, not altc^ther 
free from clouds and showers, there have been some 
gorgeous sunsets, and magnificent colouring of the depth 
and richness which people call tropical, has blazed ex- 
travagantly ; and from the violet desert to the indigo 
storm-clouds on the still snow-patched Kuhriid moun- 
tains, from the vivid green of the oasis to the purple 
crags in dark relief against a sky of flame, all things have 
been new. 

Two Sundays witnessed two incidents, one the bap- 
taam of a young Moslem in a semi-private fasliion, who 
shortly afterwards renounced Christianity, and the other 
that of a respectable Mohamraedan merchant in Isfahan, 

, who has long pleaded for baptism, presenting himself at 

I the altar rails at the Holy Communion, resolved timt if 
he were not permitted to confess Christ as Divine in one 
way he would in another. He was passed over, to my 
great regret, if he be sincere, but I suppose the Eubric 

. leaves no choice.' 

I have written little about my prospective journey 

■ because there has l>e.en a prolonged uncertainty about it, 
and even now I cannot give any definite account of the 
project, except that the route lies through an altogether 
mountainous region, iii that part of the province of 
Lnristan known in Persia colloquially as the " Bakhtiari 
country." from being inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, 
chiefly nomads. The pros and cons as to my going have 
been innumerable, and the two people in Persia who 
know the earlier part of the route say that the character 
of the people makes it impossible for a lady to travel 

e been baptized, but /or Bafetj bad to relinqniih hii 
I tqBineaa nod go to India, where be U lupporUng himaelf, and hia condoet 
I ii »lUr»ctorf . 





S88 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter iiv 

among them. On the other baud, I have the conseni 
and help of the highest authorities, Persian and Euglish, 
and shall not go too far, htit shall return to lafahau in 
cose things should turn out as is feared. The explotadon 
of & previously unexplored region will be in itself inter- 
esting, but whether there will be sufficient of the human 
interests, which I cliiefly care for, I doubt ; in that ease 
the journey will be dull. 

At all events I shall probably have to return here in 
two months,' but such a journey for myself and two sen-- 
ants in such a region requires extensive preparations, 
and I have brought all my own travelling "dodges" into 
requisition, with a selection of those of other people. 

It is considered desirable to carry stores from Isfahan 
for forty days, except flour and rice, which can lie obtained 
a week's march from here. At the British Legation 
I was kindly supplied with many tins of preserved meat, 
and milk, and jam, and besides these I am only taking 
a quantity of Edwards' Desiccated Soup, portable and 
excellent, twelve pounds of tea, aud ten pomids of candles. 
The great thing in planning is to think of what one cau 
do without. Two small bottles of saccharin supply the 
place of forty pounds of sugar. 

Two yekdatw contain my stores, cooking and table ut«D- - 
sils and personal luggage, a waterproof bag my bedding, 
and a divided packing-case, now empty, goes for the flour 
and rice. Everything in tlie yekdans is put up in baga 
made of the coarse cotton of the country. The tents and 
tent-poles, which have been socketed for easier transport 
on crooked mountain paths, and a camp-bed made from 
a Kashmiri pattern in Tihran, are all packed in covers 
made from the gunny bags in which sugar is imported, 

' I never returned, and only nt tlte end of three and ■ hnir tiiMi^ 
emerged from tlie "Bakhtiari connti;" at Bun^ird after a jonmejr of 
700 miles. 



LETTEU XIV PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE 
I and so are double sets of large aud small i. 



pegs. 



Presents for the ' 



I essential, and I 



have succeeded in getting 100 thimbles, many gross 
of small china buttons which, it is said, they hke to sew 
on children's caps, 1000 needles, a quantity of Russian 
thread, a number of boxes with mirror tops, two dozen 
double-bladed knives, and the same number of strong 
scissors, Kashmir kamarbands, gay handkerchiefs for 
women's heads, Isfahan printed " table-cloths," dozens of 
bead bracelets and necklaces, leather purses and tobacco 
pouches, and many other things. 

1 take three tents, including a shvldari, five feet 
square, and only weighing ten pounds. My kit is reduced 
to very simple elements, a kettle, two copper pots which 
fit into each other, a frying pan, cooking knife and spoon, 
ft tray instead of a table, a chair, two plates, a teacup and 
saucer, a soup plate, mug, aud teapot, all of course in 
enamelled iron, a knife, fork, and two spoons. This is 
ample for one person for any length of time in camp. 

For this amount of baggage and for the sacks of flour 
and rice, weighing 160 lbs., which will hereafter be 
carried, I have four mules, none heavily laden, aud two 
with such Hght loads that they can be ridden by my 
eervanta. These mules, two dmrvadars, and a horse are 
engaged for the journey at two h-atis (16d.) a day each, 
the owner stipulating for a bakltskeesJi of fifty krans, if at 
.&e end I am satisfied. This sum is to cover food and 
til risks. 

The animals are hired from a well-known ckarvadar, 
who has made a large fortune and is regarded as very 
trustworthy ; Dr. Bruce calls him the " prince of 
eharvadars." He and his sou are going on the "trip." 
He has a quiet, superior manner, and when he came to 
'judge of the weight of my loads, he said they were 



" very good — very right," a more agreeable verdict tlian 
muleteers are wont to pass upon baggage^ 

The makiag of the contract with Hadji involved two 
importaitt processes, the writing of it by a scribe and 
the sealing of it. The scribe is one of the most 
important persons in Persia. Every great man has one 
or more, and every little man has occasion for a scribe's 
services in tlie course of a year. He is the trusted 
depositary of an infinity of secrets. He moves with 
dignity and deliberation, hia " writer's inkhoni " pendent 
&om his girdle, and his physiognomy has been trained 
to that reticent, semi -mysterious expression common to 
successful solicitors in England. 

Writing is a fine art in Persia. The characters are 
in themselves graceful, and lend themselves readily to 
decoration. The old illuminated MSS. are things of 
beauty ; even my contract is ornamental The scribe 
holds the paper in his left hand, and uses a reed 
pen with the nib cut obliquely, writing from r^ht to 
left. The ink is thick, and is carried with the pens in 
a papier-macM inkhorn. 

Hadji tells me with much pride that his sod. Abbas 
All, can write "and will be very uaefui" 

Sealing is instead of signing. As in Japan, every 
adult male has his seal, of agate or cornelian among the 
rich, and of brass or silver among the poor. Tlie name 
is carefully engraved on the seal at a cost of from a half- 
' Haitji HusBein deserves a poBsitig recommendation. I fear that liB 
is stiU increBsing his fortune and has not retirad. The Jonmej wu ■ 
very severe one, full of peril to bis mules from robbers anil [laDgen>UB 
roads, and not without risk to bljuBelf With the cxpeption of a few 
Orientatiania, which are hardl; worth TecalUng, he was faithful and up- 
right, made do attempt to overreach, kept to his hargaiu, was punclnal 
and careful, and at Burujinl wa jartsd good friends. We waa always most 
reapectfhl to me, and I owe him gratitude for mnn; kindDesscs which in- 
creased m; comfQrt. It is ri^bt to acltDovfledge that a part of the tnceea 
of the journey was owing to the elEciency of the transport 



A ILEDICAL OUTFIT 



285 



penny to 18a. a letter. Tihrau is celebrated for its seal- 
cutters. No document is authentic without a seal as its 
Bignature. 

Hadji took the contract and applied it to his fore- 
head in tokeu of respect, touched the paper with his 
tongue to make it moist and receptive, waved it in the 
air to rid it of superfluous moisture, wetted Ms fingers on 
a spongy ball of silk full of Indian ink in the scribe's 
inkstand, mbbed the ink on the seal, breathed on it, and 
pressed it firmly down on the paper, which he held over 
the forefinger of lus left hand. The smallest acts in 
Persia are regulated by rigid custom. 

The remaining portion of my outfit, but not the least 
important, consists of a beautiful medicine chest of the 
most compact and portable make, most kindly given to 
me by Messrs. EuiToughes and Wellcome, containing fifty 
small bottles of their invaluable " tabloids," a hypodermic 
syringe, and surgical instruments for simple cases. To 
these I have added a quantity of quiuine, and Dr. 
Odling at Tihran gave me some valuable remedies. A 
quantity of bandages, lint, absorbent cotton, etc., completes 
this essential equipment. Among the many uncertainties 
of the future this appears certain, that the Eakhtiaris will 
be clamorous for European medicine. 

I have written of my servants. Mirza Yuauf pleases 
me very much, Hassan the cook seems quiet, but not 

, active, and I picture to myself the confusion of to-night 

I in camp, with two men who know nothing about camp 

[ life and ita makeshifts ! 

Whatever the summer brings, this is probably my last 

I letter written from under a roof till next winter. I am 
Borry to leave Julfa and these kind friends, but the 

[ prospect of the unknown has its charms. I. L. E. 



JOCRSETS IN PEESU 




NOTES ON THE "BAKHTIAEI COtTNTRY" OB 
LURI-BUZURG 

Is introducing the following journal of a summeF spent 
in Lnri-Buzurg or Greater Luristan by a few explanatorv 
notes, I desire to acknowledge the labours of those 
travellers wlio have preceded me over some of the 
e&dier portions of the route, and my obligations to tliose 
careful explorers of half a century ago. who tumetl tlie 
light of modem research upon tlie antiquities of Lower 
Elam and the condition of its modern inhabitants, anil 
whose earnestness and accuracy the traveller in Upper 
Elam and the Bakhtiari country may well desire to 
emulate.* 

For the correction of those portions of my letten 
vhich attempt to describe a part of mountainous 
Luristan previously unexplored, I am deeply indebted 

* The writrra «ho likve dealt with some of the earlier partioiu d( 
«iy touU are aa follows: Ueury Btoase Lyiicb, Esi{,, Acron LuriaUin b 
f J r - ■ ■ ■ ' ' , b/ thf JL a. S., September 1390. Colonel VL %. 

Wl, V.a, A VUa to Iht Karuii Siter and EAm—Blaeiwod'a Magatuit, 
A|nl ISSS. Colonel J. A. Btteman Champun, R.E, On Ou Vaivm 
^tml ^ Communication bttwnn CttUnd Ftrtia and Ou Sta—ProeeaH%p 
S.. Munli 1S83. Cobael H. I. Wells, KK, Sarrri/VKg 
I SwIA- tf «sten> Persia— Fro<Mdingi of R. a. H,, March 1883. 
i,SixMaiUhtinPeritia.lMndon,iSei. Mr. Hackenzie, %wA— 
jt^It.O. S.. March 1883. The following among other wrilere 
It with the condition af the Bakhtinri and Feili Lura, and withths 
ff of the region to the west and south-Reat of the continuation of 
it Zagroa chain, termed in these nates the " Outer " and " Inner" 



THE UPPEE KARUN 287 

to a recent unpublished Geographical Report, to which 
any geographical interest which they may poaaeaa is 
altogether due. For the customs and beliefs of the 
Eakhtiaris I have had to depend entirely on my own 
investigations, made through an intelligent and faith- 
ful interpreter, whose desire for accuracy was scarcely 
exceeded by my own. 

The accompanying sketch map represents an area of 
15,000 square miles, lying, roughly speaking, between 
Lat. 31° and 34° N., and between Long. 48° and 51° 
R, and covering a distance of 300 miles from the Khana 
Mirza to Khuramabad. 

The itinerary covers a distance of about TOO miles, a 
I journey of three and a half months, chiefly in the region 
I of the Upper Karun and its affluents, among which 
must be included the head-watera of the Ab-i-Diz. 

During this time the Karun was traced, wherever 
the nature of its bed a<imitted of it, from the gorge of 
Dupulan, below which several travellei-a have investigated 
and reported its extraordinary windings, up to the Sar- 
Cheshmeh-i-Kurang, its reputed scource, a vigorous 
fountain spring with an altitude of 8000 feet in the 
steep limestone face of the north-eastern side of the 
Zard Kub range, and upwards to its real source in the 
I Kuh-i-Kang or " variegated mountain." 

The Ab-i-Diz was found to carry off the water of a 
I lai^er area than had been supposed; the north-west 
a of the BakhtUri moniitains, their ranUa touchiiig those of the 
I pnsent writer at Khummabad : Sir H. RawliuHOu, Nntaof a March from 
L^etoila Khuatlanin ISSi—Joumal qf tht H.O.S., vol. ix., 1830. Sir 
ftiA* H. Lajnnl, Earlg Advtntaro iti Pirna, Siaiami, and Babylonia, inelud- 
Vfvo nridnue among the BakhOari and other -urild [ribes, 2 vols., Loudon, 
f 1SS7. Baron C A. de Bode, Travel* in LMnalan and Ambistan, 2 vols., 
London, 1S4S. W. F. Aioavorth (Surgeon and Geologist to the Euph- 
ratee Expedition), The Rivtr Koran, LoDilon, 1890. GcDeral Schindler 
travelled over and described the Isfahan and Sliaster route, and pub- 
lished a map of the country in 18S1. 





SS8 JOURNEi'S IN PERSIA som 

branches, the Ab-i-Burujird and tlie Kamandab, which 
drain the well-watered plain of Silakhor, almost yieldmg 
in importance to the Guwa and Gokun, which, unitiDg 
to form what, for convenience' sake, was termed ihi; 
Ab-i-Basnoi, receive the drainage of the upper part of 
Faraidau, an important district of Persia proper. 

A lake of marvellously coloured water, two and a half 
miles long by one mile wide, very deep, and with a 
persistent level, was found to occupy a hollow at tht 
inner foot of the grand mountain Shuturun, and this, 
having no native name, was marked on the map as L-ike 
Irene. 

The Bakhtiari mountains are chaiiis of precipitaiu 
parallel ranges, generally running north-west and south- 
east, the valleys which divide them and carrj' off theit 
waters taking the same directions as far as the Kuh-i-Rang, 
where a remarkable change takes place, noticed in Letter 
XVII. This great mountain region, lying between the 
lofty plateau of Central Persia and the plains of Khuzis- 
tau, has continuous ranges of singular steepness, bal 
rarely broken up into prominent peaks, the Kuh-i-IJang, 
the Kuh-i-Shahan, the Shuturun Kuh, and Dalonak being 
detached mountains. 

The great ranges of the Kuh-i-Sukhta, the Kiih-i- 
Gerra, the Sabz Kuh, the Kala Kuli, and the Zard Kuh 
were crossed and recrossed by passes from 8000 to 
11,000 feet in altitude; many of the summits were 
ascended, and the deep valleys between them, with licit 
full-watered, peacock-green streams, were followed up 
wherever it was possible to do so. The magnificent 
mountain Kuh-i-Rang was ascertained to be not only o 
notable water-parting, but to indicate in a very marked 
manner two distinct mountain systems with remarkable 
peculiarities of di-ainage, as well as to form a colossal 
barrier between two regions which, for, the sake of 



BiKHTiARi PECULIARITIES OF FOEMATION 289 

inteliif^ble description, were called "Upper Elam" aud 
the " Eakhtiari country." 

The same authority, for the same purpose, desig- 
nated the two main and highest chains of mountains 
by the tenns " Outer " and "Inoer" ranges, the former 
being the one nearest the great Persian plateau, the latter 
the chain nearest to the Khuzistaii plains. The con- 
jectural altitudes of the peaks in this hitherto unexplored 
region have been brought down by some thousands of 
feet, and the " eternal snow " with which rumour had 
crested them has turned out a myth, the altitude of the 
highest sunnnit being estimated at only a trifle over 
13,000 feet. 

The nearly continuous ranges south-east of the Kuh- 
i-Rang are pierced for the passage of water by a few 
remarkable rifts or Iwngs — the Outer range by the Tang- 
i-Ghezi, the outlet of the Zaiuderud towards Isfahan, and 
the Tang- i-D ark ash Warkash, by which the drainage of 
the important districts of the Chahar Mahals passes to 
the Karun, the Inner range being pierced at the Tang-i- 
Dupulan by the Karun itself North-west of the Kuh- 
i-Kang the rivers which carry the drainage of certain 
districts of Bouth-west Persia to the sea pierce the main 
mountain ranges at right augles, passing through magni- 
ficent goi^es and chasms from 3000 to 5000 feet in 
depth. 

Among the mountains, but especially in the formation 
aoutb-east of the Kuh-i-Kang. there are many alpine 
valleys at altitudes of from 7000 to 8500 feet, rich 
summer pastures, such as Gurab, Chigakhor, Shorab, and 
Cheshmeh Zarin. 

Some of the valleys are of considerable width, many 

only afford room for narrow tracks above the streams 

by which they are usually watered, while others are 

mere rifts for torrents and are inaccessible. Among the 

VOL. I u 



1 

1 



990 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA sons 

limestone ranges fountain springs are of frequent occur- 
rence, gushing out of the mountain sides with great 
volume and impetuosity — the perennial sources of per- 
ennial streams. 

Much of the country is absolutely without wood, pro- 
ducing nothing fit even for fuel hut the Asiragaltis rem 
and the Astragalus tragacantlin. This is especially the case 
on the outer slopes of tlie Outer range, which are fonnei! 
of rocky ribs with a covering of gravel, and are " barren. 
treeless, waterless, and graBsless." From the same cresi 
to the outer slopes of the Inner range, which descend on 
Khuzistan, there are splendid pasturage, abundant water. 
and extensive forests in the deep valleys and on the hill 
slopes.' 

The trees, however, can rarely be defined as " forest 
trees." They are small in girth and are usually Btnuted 
and wizened in aspect, as if the conditions of their exist- 
ence were not kindly. 

Flowers are innumerable in the months of May and 
June, beginning with the tulip, the iris, the narcissus, and 
a small purple gladiolus, and a little later many of tie 
hillsides above an altitude of VOOO feet are aflame with 
a crimson and terra-cotta fniillaria imperialis, and a 
camation-red anemone, while the margins of tlie snow- 
fields are gay with piuk patches of an exquisite alpine 
primula. Chicory, the dark blue centaurea, a large orange 
and yellow snapdragon, and the scarlet poppy atteoil 
upon grain crops there as elsewhere, and the slopes above 
the upper Karun are brilliant with pink, mauve, and 

■ Among the trees and Blimbs to be met with are an oakfQutTcta 
balMa), n-liicli mpptjea the people ivitli acom flour, the Plalantu tnd 
Tamaritaa mientalit, the jujiibc tree, two species of elm, a dwarf IVDi- 
rifik, pfipUr, four apeciea of willow, the apple, poar, pherry, plum, walnut, 
gooseberry, almond, dogwood, hawtbom, uh, lilao, alder, Faliumt eaii- 
tattia, rosD, bramble, honeysuckle, hop vine, giape vine, Cletaalil arim- 
lalU, Jvnipcnis eaiaUa, and hornbeam. 



BAKBTiARi ECONOMIC PLANTS 291 

white hollyhocks. But it must be admitted that the chief 
interest of many of the flowers is botanical only. They 
are leathery, woolly, tiiomy, and sticky, adapted rather 
for arid circumstances than to rejoice the eye. 

Among the economic plants observed were the Cen- 
taurea alata, which grows in singular abundance at a 
height of from 5500 to 7000 feet, and ia cut and stacked 
for fodder ; a species of celery of veiy strong flavour, 
which is an important article of food for man and beast, 
and the flower-stalks of which, six feet high, are woven into 
booths by some of the tribes ; the blue liunm, red madder, 
the eryiigiiim axruteum, which is cut and stacked for 
fodder ; a purple garlic, the bulbs of which are eaten ; 
liquorice, and the Ferula, asafetida in small quantities. 

It is a surprise to the traveller to find that a large 
area is under cultivation, and that the crops of wheat and 
barley are clean, and up to the Teraian average, and that 
the removal of stones and a laborious irrigation system 
I are the work of nomads who only occupy their yaUaks 
I for five months of the year. It may be said that nearly 
every valley and hill-slope where water ia procurable is 
turned to account for grain crops. 

No part of the world in this latitude is fuller of 
streams and torrents, but three only attain to any geo- 
graphical dignity — the Zainderud, or river of Isfahan, 
which after a course full of promise loses itself ignomiui- 
ouslyina partially-explored swamp; the Karun, with its 
Sakhtiari tributaries of the Ab-i-Bazuft, the Darkash 
Warkaah, the Ab-i-Sabzu, and the Dinarud ; and the Ab-i- 
Diz, which has au important course of its own before its 
junction with the Karuu at Baudakir. None of these 
rivers are navigable during their course through the 
Bakhtiari mountains. They are occasionally spanned by 
bridges of stone or wickerwork, or of yet simpler con- 
struction. 



m 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



With the exception of the small area of the OuUr 
range, which contains the head-waters of the Zainderud, 
the Bakhtiari country proper consists of the vaUej"3 of 
the upper Karun and its tributaries. 

Tlie tracks uatitrally follow the valleys, snd are fairl; 
easy in their gradients to the south-east of the Kuh-i-Rang. 
To the north-west, however, being compelled to cross 
rivers which pierce the ranges at right angles to their 
directions, ascenta and descents of several thousand feel 
are involved at short intervals, formed of rock ladders, 
which may be regarded as " impassable for laden animals." 

The so-called roads ore nothing better than tracks 
worn in the course of centuries by the annual passage of 
tlie nomads and their flocks to and from their summer 
pastures. In addition to the tracks which follow the he 
of the valleys, footpaths cross the main ranges where 
foothold can be obtained. 

There are but two bridle tracks which deserve mention 
as being possible for caravan traffic between Isfahan and 
Shuster, one crossing the God-i-Murda at a height of 
7050 feet and the Karun at Dupnlan, the other, whicl 
considerably diminishes the distance between the two 
commercial points, crossing the Zard Kuh by the Cherri 
Pass at an altitude of 9550 feet and dropping down 
a steep descent of over 4000 feet to the Bazuft river. 
These, the Gurab, and the Gil-i-Shah, and Fambakal 
Passes, which cross the Zard Kuh range at elevations of 
over 11,000 feet, are reported as closed by snow for 
several months in winter. In view of the cart-road from 
Abwaz to Tiliran, which will pass through the gap of 
Xliuramabad. the possible importance of any one of tiieae 
routes fades completely away. 

The climate, though one of extremes, is healthy. 
Maladies of locality are unknown, the water ia usually 
pure, and malarious swamps do not exist. Salt springs 



iiKHTURi TRACES OP FORMER CIVILISATION 293 

produce a sufiicieucy of salt for wlioleaorae use, and 
mediciual plants abound. The heat begins in early June 
and is steady till the end of Augnat, tlie mercury rising 
to 102° in the shade at altitudes of VOOO feet, but it is 
rarely oppressive; the nights are cool, and greenery and 
abounding waters are a delightful contrast to the arid 
hills and burning plains of Persia. The rainfall is 
scarcely measurable, the snowfall is reported as heavy, 
and the winter temperatures are presumably low. 

There are few traces of a past history, and the legends 
connected with the few are too hazy to he of any value, 
but there are remains of bridges of dressed stone, and of 
at least one ancient road, which must have been trodden 
by the soldiers of Alexander the Great and Valerian, and 
it is not impossible that the rude forta here and there 
which the tribesmen attribute to mythical heroes of their 
own race may have been bnUt to guard Greek or Roman 
communications. 

The geology, entomology, and zoology of the Bakhtiari 
country have yet to be investigated. In a journey of 
three months and a half the only animals seen were a 
bear and cubs, a boar, some small ibex, a blue hare, and 
some jackals. Francoliu are common, and storks were 
seen, bnt scarcely any other birds, and bees and butterflies 
are rare> It is the noxious forms of animated life winch 
are abundant There are snakes, some of them venomous, 
a venomous spider, and a stinging beetle, and legions of 
black flies, mosquitos, and sand-tlies infest many localities. 

This area of lofty ranges, valleys, gorges, and alpiiii' 
pasturages is inhabited by the Bakhtiari Lurs, classed 
with the savage or semi-savage races, who, though they 
descend to the warmer plains in the winter, invariably 
speak of these mountains as " their country." On this 
journey nearly all the tribes were visited in their own 
encampments, and their arrangements, modes of living, 





S94 JOURNEYS IN PERSLA soim 

customs, and beliefs were subjects of daily investigation, 
the results of which are given in the letters which 
follow. 

Their own veiy hazy traditions, which are swift to 
lose themselves in the fabulous, represent that they came 
from Syria, under one chief, and took possession of tha 
country which they now inhabit. A later tradition states 
that a descendant of this chief had two wives equally 
beloved, one of whom had four sons, and the other 
seven ; and that after their father's death the youog men 
quarrelled, separated, and bequeathed their quarrel Ut 
posterity, the seven brothers forming the Haft Lang 
division of the Bakhtiaris, and the four the Cbahar Lang' 

The Haft Lang, though originally far superior in 
numbers, weakened their power by their unending 
internal conflicts, and in 1840, when Sir A. H. Layard 
visited a part of Luristan not embraced in this route, and 
sojourned at Kala-i-Tul, the power and headship of 
Mebemet Taki Khan, the great chief of their rivals th« 
Chaliar Lang, were recognised throughout the region. 

Tlie misfortunes which came upon him overthrew the 
supremacy of his clan, and now (as for some years past) 
the Haft Lang supply the ruling dynasty, the Cliahar 
Lang being, however, still strong enough to decide any 
battles for the chieftainship which may he fought amoi^ 
their rivals. Time, and a stronger assertion of the 
sovereignty of Persia, have toned the feud down into a 
general enmity and aversion, but the tribes of the two 
septs rarely intermarry, and seldom encamp near each 
other without bloodshed. 

The great divisions of the Bakhtiaris, the Haft Txtng, 

the Cbahar Lang, and the JJinarunis, with the dependencies 

of the Janiki Garmsir, the Janiki Sardsir, and the 

Afshar tribe of Gunduzlu, remain as they were half • 

' In Persian ka/1 is seven, and cAoAar four. 



BAKBTiARi THE BAKHTIARI LURS 295 

ceoturj' ago, when they were the subject of careful ittveati- 
gation by Sir A. H. Layard and Sir H. Rawliuson. 

The tribes (aa enumerated by several of the Khana 
without auy divergence in their statements) number 
29,100 families, an increase in the last half- century. 
Taking eight to a household, which I believe to be a 
fair estimate, a population of 232,800 would be the 
resulL' 

A few small villages of mud hovels at low altitudes 
are tenanted by a part of their inhabitants throughout 
the winter, the other part migrating with the bulk of the 
flocks; and 3000 families of the two great Jantki 
divisions are dek-nishins or " dwellers in cities," i.e. they 
do not migrate at all ; but the rest are nomads, that is, 
they have winter camping-grounds in the wai'm plains of 
Khuzistan and elsewhere, and summer pastures in the 
region of the Upper Karun and its affluents, making two 
annual migrations between their garmsirs and sardeirs 
(hot and cold quarters). 

Though a pastoral people, they have (as has been 
referred to previously) of late years irrigated, atoned, and 
cultivated a number of their valleys, sowing in the early 
autumn, leaving the crops for the winter and early 
spring, and on their return weeding them very carefully 
till harvest-time in July. 

They live on the produce of their flocks and herds, on 
leavened cakes made of wheat and barley flour, and on a 
paste made of acorn flour. 

In religion they are fanatical Moslems of the Shiah 
sect, but combine relics of nature worship with the tenets 
of Islam. 

The tribes, which were to a great extent united under 

' Thia computAtion is subject to correction. Various couaideratious 

diapoM the Ilkhuni aud tbo otbur Khaua to mlnimiw or maguify the 

]>opuUtion. It liaa been etated at froni 107,000 Co 275,000 boqIs, aud by 

a "high authority" to diffeteat imraons aa 107,000 and 211,000 loula! 



i 



S96 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA kotm 

the judicious and ambitious policy of Mebemet Taki 
Xhan (lad Hussein Kuli Kliau, nominally acknowledge 
one fendal head, the Ilkhaui, who is associated in power 
with another chief called the Ilbegi. The Ilkhani, who 
is appointed by the Shah for a given period, capable of 
indefinite extension, is responsible for the tribute, which 
amounts to about two ivmatis a household, and for the 
good order of Luri-Buzurg. 

The Baklitiaris are good horsemen and marksmen. 
Possibly in iuter-tribal war from 10,000 to 12,000 men 
might take the field, but it is doubtful whether more 
than from 6000 to 8000 could be rehed on in an 
external quarrel. 

The Khan of each tribe is practically its despotic 
ruler, and every tribesman is bound to hold himeelf at 
his disposal. 

As concerns tribute, they are under the government of 
Isfahan, with the exception of three tribes and a half, 
which are under the government of Burujird. 

Tliey are a warlike people, and though more peaceable 
than formerly, they cherish blood-feuds and are always 
fighting among themselves. Their habits are predatory 
by inclination and tradition, but they have certAin 
notions of honour and of regard to pledges when 
voluntarily given.' 

They deny Persian origin, but speak a dialect oS 

' Sir. H. Kawlimou suma up Btkhtuui character in these Tsnr ■«*«» 
worda ; "1 believe them to be iodiTidaally brave, bnt or a crael mml 
savage cliRracter ; thej pursue their blood-feuda with the moBt iuveterata 
and extenuinating aptrit, and the; consider no oath or obligatioD in any 
iray bindiiig whea it interferes with their thirst for reveage ; indeed, ths 
dreadful atoriea of dotoMtic tragedy tliat are reluted, in which whola 
Families have falleo by 'each other's hands (a ton, for instance, havingalain 
his father to obtain the chiefsliip— another brother having avenged the 
murder, and so on, till only one individual was left), are enough to (reen 
the blood with horror. 

" It ia provcrbiai in Persia that tho Bakhtiaris have been obliged to 



BAKHTiAKi THE FEILI LURS 297 

Persian. Conquered by Kaclir Shah, who took many 
of them into his service, they became independent after 
his death, until the reign of Mohammed Shah. Though 
tributary, they atill possess a sort of quasi independence, 
though Persia of late years has tightened her grip upon 
them, and the Shah keeps many of their influential 
families in Tihran and its neighbourhood as hostages for 
the good behaviour of their clans. 

Of the Feili Lura, the nomads of Luri-Kushak or the 
Lesser Luristan, the region lying between the Ab-i-Diz 
and the Assyrian plains, with the province of Kirmanshah 
to the north and Susiana to the south, little was seen. 
These tribes are numerically superior to the Bakhtiaris. 
Fifty years ago, according to Sir H. EawUnson, they 
numbered 56,000 families. 

They have no single feudal chieftain like their 
neighbours, nor are their subdivisions ruled, as among 
them, by powerful Khans. They are governed by 
Tuskmale (lit. " master of a house ") and four or five of 
these are associated in the rule of every tribal subdivision. 
On such occasions as involve tribal well-being or the 
reverse, these Tiishmala consult as equals. 

Sir H. Eawlinson considered that the Feili Liir form of 
government is very rare among the clan nations of Asia, 
and that it approaches tolerably near to the spirit of a 
confederated repnblic. Tlieir language, according to the 
same authority, differs little from that of the Kurds of 
Kinnansbali. 

forego altogether the rending of the FUhlihah nr prayer for ths desd, for 
otherwise tliey would have uo other occupation. They are also most 
dexterous and notorious thiovFS. Altogeber they may be considered the 
most wild and barbarous of all the inhabitantB of Persia." — " Notes on 
a March from Zohah to Khuziatan," Journal of the R.O.S., vol. ix. 
Probably there is an improTement since this verdict was pronoURued. At 
■II events I am ioclined to take a much more favourable view of the 
Bakhtiaris than has been given in the very intereiting paper from mbioh 
,' tlkia quotation is made. 





298 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA botes 

Unliie the Bakbtiarifl, they neglect agriculture, but 
they breed and export mules, and trade in carpets, 
charcoal, horse -furniture, and sheep. 

In faith they are AJi Ilahia, but are grossly ignorant 
and religiously iudifl'ereut ; they show scarcely any respect 
to Mohammed and the Koran, and combine a number of 
ancient superstitions and curious sacriticial ritea with a 
deep reverence for Sultan Ibrahim, who under the name 
of Bdha Buzurg (the great father) 18 worshipped through- 
out Luri-Kushak. 

For the tribute payable to Persia no single individoal 
is responsible. The sum to be levied is distributed 
among the tribes by a general council, after which each 
subdivision apportions the amount to be paid by the 
different camps, and the Rish-Sefid (lit gray-beard) or 
head of each encampment collects from the different 
families according to their means. 

The task of the Persian tax-collector ia a difficult 
one, for the tribes are in a state of chronic turbulence, 
and fail even in obedience to then- own general council, 
and tbe collection frequently ends in an incursion of 
Persian soldiera and a Government raid ou the docks and 
herds. Many of these people are miserably poor, and 
they are annually growing poorer under Persian mal- 
administration. 

The Feili Lurs are important to England commercially, 
because the cart-road from Ahwaz to Tihrau, to be 
completed within two years, passes partly through their 
country,' and its success as the future trade route from 

' A report to the Foreign Office (No. 207) made by on ofBuer wbD 
travelled Trom KliurBin&bait to Dizfal in DecuDiber I6E)D, contuDi tbs 
following remarks on Ibis route. 

"As to the danger to camvuia in paaaiag through these bills, 1 un 
inclined to believe that tlie Lurs are now content to ibandon robbery with 
Ttoleni^e in favour of payments and contribuliouii from tituld traden txA 
tWTellers. They hang upon tha rear of o caravan ; an Bccidflnt, a fklleD or 



BAKHTiARi THE CART-ROAD TO TIHRAN 299 

the Gulf depends upon their good- will, or rather upon their 
successful coercion by the Persian Government. 

strayed pack animal, or stragglers in difficulty bring them to the spot, and, 
on the pretence of assistance given, a demand is made for money, in lieu 
of which, on fear or hesitation being shown, they obtain such articles as 
they take a fancy to. 

" The tribes through whose limits the road runs have annual allowances 
for protecting it, but it is a question whether these are regularly paid. It 
can hardly be expected that the same system of deferred and reduced pay- 
ments, which unfortunately prevails in the Persian public service, should 
be accepted patiently by a starving people, who have long been given to 
predatory habits, and this may account for occasional disturbance. They 
probably find it difficult to understand why payment of taxes should be 
mercilessly exacted upon them, while their allowances remain unpaid. It 
is generally believed that they would take readily to work if fairly treated 
and honestly paid, and I was told that for the construction of the pro- 
posed cart-road there would be no difficulty in getting labourers from the 
neighbouring Lur tribes." 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTER XrV 



Eahva RrxB, Chahab ^(aiials, iTiy f. 

I LIFT Jaira OD the afternoon of April 30, with Miss 
Bnice as my guest and Mr. Douglas as our escort for tl» 
first three or four days. The caravan was sent forwatd 
early, that nty inexperienced ser^'anLs might have time to 
pitch the tents before our arrivaL 

Green and pleasant looked the narrow streete and 
walled gardens of Julfa under a blue sky, on which black 
clouds were heavily massed here and there ; but greenen" 
was soon exchanged for long lines of mud ruins, and the 
great gravelly slopes in which tlie mountains descend 
upon the vast expnnse of plain which surrounds Isfahan, 
on which the villages of low mud houses are marked by 
dark belts of poplars, willows, fruit-trees, and great 
patches of irrigated and cultivated land, shortly to take 
on the yellow hue of the surrounding waste, but now 
beautifully green. 

Passing through Pul-i-Wargun, a large and much 
wooded village on the Zainderud, there a very powerful 
stream, affording abundant water power, scarcely used, we 
crossed a bridge 450 feet long by twelve feet broad, of 
eighteen brick arches resting on stone piers, and found the 
camps pitched ou some ploughed land by a stream, and 
afternoon tea ready for the friends who had come to 
I give us what Persiaus call " a throw on the road." I 
I examined my equipments, found that nothing essential 





■ I.£TT&B SIV 



THE ZAINDERUD 



Ivas lacking, initiated my servants into their evening 
I duties, especially that of tightening tent ropea and driving 
I tent pegs well in, and enjoyed a social evening in the 
I adjacent camp. 

The next day's journey, made under an unclouded skj-, 
j was mainly along the Zainderud, from which all the 
I channels and rills which nourish the vegetation far and 
I near are taken. A fine, strong, full river it is there and 
, at Isfahan in spring, so prolific in good works that one 
regrets that it should he lost sixty mUes east of Isfahan 
in the Gas-Khana, an unwholesome marsh, the whole of 
its waters disappearing in the Kavir. Many large villages 
with imposing pigeou-towers He along this part of its 
course, surrounded with apricot and walnut orchards, 
wheat and poppy fields, every village an oasis, and every 
oasis a paradise, as seen in the first flush of spring. Un 
a slope of gravel is the Bagh-i-Washi, with the remains of 
an immense enclosure, where the renowned Shah Abbas 
is said to have had a menagerie. Were it not for the 
beautiful fringe of fertility on both margins of the 
Zainderud the country would be a complete waste. The 
opium poppy is in bloom now. TTie use of opium in 
Persia and its exportation are always increasing, and as 
it is a very profitable crop, both to the cultivators and 
to the Government, it is to some extent _ superseding 
wheat. 

Leaving the greenery we turned into a desert of gravel, 

crossed some low hills, and in the late afternoon came 

down upon the irrigated lands which surroimd the large 

and prosperous village of Eiz, the handsome and lofty 

I pigeon-towers of which give it quite a fine appearance 

I from a distance. 

These pigeon-towers are numerous, both near Isfahan 
L and in the villages along the Zainderud, and are every- 
1 .where far more imposing than the houses of the people. 



30S JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LrrrtR xiv 

Since the great famint!, which made a complete end of 
pigeon-keepiug I'or the time, the industry haa never 
assumed its former proportions, and near Julfa many of 
the towers are falling iuto ruin. 

The Riz towers, however, are in good repair. They are 
all built iu the same way, varying only in size and height, 
from twenty to fifty feet in diameter, and from twenty- 
five to eighty feet from base to summit. They are 
"round towers," narrowing towards the top. They me 
built of sun-dried bricks of local origin, costing about two 
kra7is or 16d. a thousand, and are decorated with rin^ 
of yellowish plaster, with coarse arabesques in red ochre 
upon them. For a door there is an opening half-way up. 
plastered over like the rest of the wall. 

Two walls, cutting each other across at right angles, 
divide the interior. I am describing from a mined tower 
which was easy of ingress. The sides of these walls, and 
the whole of the inner surface of the tower, are occupied 
by pigeon cells, the open euda of wliicb are about twelve 
inches square. Accoi-ding to its size a pigeon-tower 
may contain from 2000 to 7000, or even 8000, pairs 
of pigeons. These birds are gray-blue iu colour. 

A pigeon-tower is a nuisance to the neighbourhood, 
for its occupants, being totally unprovided for by their 
proprietor, live upon their neighbours' fields. In former 
days it must have been a grand sight when they 
returned to their tower after the day's depredations. 
" Who are these that fly as a cloud, and aa the doves to 
their windows ? " probably referred to a similar arrange- 
ment in Palestine. 

The object of the towers is the preservation and 
collection of " pigeon guano," which is highly prized for 
the raising of early melons. The door is opened once a 
year for the collection of this valuable manure. A large 
pigeon-tower used to bring its owner from £60 t« £75 



LETTER XIV UNPLEASANT EXPERIENCES 303 

I per aiinum, but a cessation of the great demand for early 
I melons in the neighbourhood of Isfahan haa prevented 
' the re-stocking of the towers since the famine. 

Our experiences of Biz were not pleasant. One of the 
party during a short absence from his tent was i-obbed of 
a very valuable acientific instrument. After that there 
was the shuffling sound of a multitude oytside the tent 
in which Miss Bruce and I were resting, and women 
concealed from head to foot in blue and white checked 
sheets, revealing but one eye, kept lifting the tent 
curtain, and when that was laced, applying the one eye 
to the spaces between the lace-holes, whispering and 
tittering all the time. Hot though it was, their persever- 
ing curiosity prevented any ventilation, and the steady 
gaze of single eyes here, there, and evei-ywhere was most 
exasperating. It was impossible to use the dressing tent, 
for crowds of boys assembled, and rows of open mouths 
and staring eyes appeared between the Jly and the 
ground. Vainly Miss Bruce, who speaks Persian well 
and courteously, told the women that this intrusion on 
our privacy wheu we were very tired was both rude and 
unkind. "We're only women," they said, "ive shouldn't 
mind it, we've never seen so many Europeans before." 
Sunset ended the nuisance, for then the whole crowd, 
having fasted since sunrise, hurried home for food. 

The great fast of the month of Ilaraazan began before 
L we left Julfa. Moslems are not at their best while it 

■ lasts. They are apt to be crabbed and irritable; and 
reverything that can be postponed is put off " till after 
lEamazan." 

Much ostentation comes out in the keeping of it ; very 
l.|iiou3 people begin to fast before the month sets in. A 

■ ieally ascetic Moslem does not even swallow his saliva 
; the fast, and none but very old or sick people, 

Jiildren, and travellers, are exempt from the obligation 




304 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



to taste neither food iioi watar, and not even to smoke 1 
during daylight, for a whole month. The penance is a 
fearful one, and as the night is the only time for feasting, 
the Persians get through as much of the day as possible 
in sleep. 

Welcome indeed is the aunaet. With joy men fill 
their pipes and drink tea as a prelude to the meal eat«u 
an hour afterwards. Hateful is the dawn and the ciy 
au hour hefore it, " Water ! oh, water and opium ! " — the 
warning to the faithful to drink largely and swallow an 
opium pill hefore sunrise. The thirst even in weather 
like this, and the abstentioa from smoking, are severer 
trials than the fasting from food. The Persian either 
lives to smoke, or smokes to live. 

Although travellers are nominally exempt from the 
fast from water at least, pious Moslems do not avail 
themselves of the liberty. Hadji Hussein, for instance, is 
keeping it as rigidly as any one, and, like some others, 
marches with the end of his pagri tucked over his 
mouth and nose, a religions affectation, supposed to 
prevent the breaking of the fast by swallowing the 
animalcul^e which are believed to infest the air! 

Beyond Riz, everywhere there are arid yellow moun- 
tains and yellow gravelly plains, except along the Zaindemd, 
where fruit-trees, wheat, and the opium Jjoppy relieve the 
eyes from the glare. We took leave of the Zalndenid 
at Pul-i-Kala, where it is crossed by a dilapidated but 
passable and very picturesque stone bridge of eight archefl, 
and the view from the high right bank of wood, bridge, 
and the vigorous green river is verj' pretty. 

Little enough of trees or greenery have we seen since. 
This country, like much of the great Iranian plateau, con- 
sists of high mountains with broad valleys or large or 
small plateaus between them, absolutely treeless, and even 
now neatly verdureless, with scattered oases wherever a 



IV PERSIAN IRRIGATION 305 

issibility of proeuriog water by means of laboriously- 
mstriicteii irrigation canala renders cultivation possible. 

Water 13 scarce and precious ; its value may be 
ithered from the allusions madu by the reraian poets 

fountains, cascades, shady pools, running streams, and 

bbling springs. Such expressions as those in Scripture, 

ivera of waters," " a spring of water whose waters fail 

t," convey a fulnesa of meaning to Persian ears of which 

! are quite ignorant. The first inquiry of a Persian about 

any part of his own couiitiy is. "Is there water J " the 

second, " Is the water good ? " and if he wishes to extol 

any particular region he says " the water is abundant all 

the year, and is sweet, there is no such water anywhere." 

The position of a village is always determined by the 
water supply, for tlie people have not only to tliink of 
water for domestic purposes, but for irrigating their crops, 
and this accounts for tlie packing of hamlets on steep 
mountain sides where land for cultivation can only be 
obtained by laborious terracing, but where some perennial 
stream can be relied on for filling the small canals. 
The fight for water is one of the hardest necessities of the 
Per^an peasant. A water famiue of greater or less degree 
is a constant peril. 

Land in i'ersia is of three grades, the wholly irrigated, 
the partially irrigated, and the "rain-lands." usually up- 
lands, chiefly suited for pasturage. The wholly irrigated 
land is the most productive. The assessments for taxes 
appear to leave altogether out of account the relative 
fertility of the land, and to be calculated solely on the 
supply of water. A winter like the last, of hea\'y s 
means a plenteous harvest, i.e. " twelve or fourteen grains 
for one," as the peasants put it ; a scanty snowfall means 
famine, for the little rain which falls is practically of 
flcarcely any use. 

The plan for the distribution of water seems to be far 





JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lctter ii» 

less provocative of quarrels than that of some other 
regions dependent on irrigation, such as Ladak iind XabrL 
Where it is nt all abundant, as it is in this Zaindernd 
valley, it is only in the great heats of summer that it is 
necessary to apportion it with any rigidity. It is then 
placed in the hands of a mirah or water officer, who allows 
it to each village in turn for so many days, during which 
time the villages above get none, or the /celchudas manage 
it among themselves without the aid of a mirab, for the sad 
truth, whicli is applicable to all Persian officialism, appli^ 
in the vtirah's case, that if a village be rich enough to 
bribe him it can get water out of its turn. 

The blessedness of the Zainderud valley is exceptional, 
and tile general rule in the majority of districts is tlist 
the water must be carefully divided and be measured by 
"tasfUs," each ta^t being equivalent to the use of the 
water supply for eleven minutes. 

"This space of time is estimated in a very ancient 
fashion by floating & copper bowl with a needle hole 
in the bottom in a large vessel of water. The tas^ 
comes to an end as the bowl sinks. The distribution 
is regulated by the number of taslUn that each man 
has a right to. If he has a right to twenty he will 
receive water for three and three-quarter hours of Uie 
day or night eveiy tenth day." Land without water in 
Persia is about as valuable as the " south lands " were 
which were given to Caleb's daughter. 

So far as I can learn, the Persian peasant eujoj"a a 
tolerable security of tenure so long as he pays his rent 
A common rate of rent is two-thirds of the produce, but 
on lands where the snow lies for many months, even 
vben they are " wet lands," it is only one-third ; but this 
system is subject to many modifications specially arising 
out of the finding or non-finding of the seed by the owner, 
and there is no uniformity in the manner of holding land 



ietteh siv A BAKHTIARI ESCORT 307 

or in assessing the taxes or in anything else, though the 
system established 1400 years ago is still the basis of the 
whole. ^ 

The line between the oasis and tlie desert is always 
strongly marked and definite. There is no shading away 
between the deep green of the growing wheat and the 
yellow or red gravel beyond. The general impression is 
one of complete nakedness. The flowers which in this 
month bloom on the slopes are mostly stiff, leathery, and 
thorny. The mountains themselves viewed from below 
are without any indication of green. The usual colouring 
18 grayish -yellow or a feeble red, intensifying at aun- 
Bet, but rarely glorified owing to the absence of " atmo- 
sphere." 

It ia a very solitary route from Pul-i-Kala, without 
villages, and we met neither caravans nor foot passengers. 
The others rode on, and I followed with two of the 
Bakhtiori escort, who with Kustem Khan, a minor chief. 
had accompanied us from Julfa. These men were most 
inconseqneiit iu their proceedings, wheeling round me at 
a gallop, singing, or rather howling, firing their long guns, 
throwing themselves into one stirrup and nearly off their 
horses, and one who rides without a bridle came up 
behind me with his horse bolting and nearly knocked 
me out of the saddle with the long barrel of his gun. 
When the village of Charmi came in sight I signed to 
them to go on, and we all rode at a gallop, the horsemen 
uttering wild cries and going through the pantomime of 
firing over the left shoulders and right flanks of their 



The camps were pitched on what might he called the 
village green. Charmi, like many Persian villages, is 



* The reiulen interested Id aueh nintterB will find mucih carefully- 
, aeqaireil inrormation on water distribution, : 



the Becond volume of the late Mr. Stack' 





SOS JOUBNEVS !N PERSIA 

walled, the wall, wliicli is much jagged by rain and frost, 
having round towers at intervals, and a large f^ateway. 
Such walk are no real protection, but serve t*J keep ibe 
flocka and herds from nocturnal depredators. Within ihe 
gate is a house called the Fort, with a very tine loom 
fully thirty feet long hy fifteen high, decorated with b 
mingled splendour and eimpUcity surprising in a rural 
district. Tlie wall next the courtyard is e-ntirely of 
very beautiful fretwork, filled in with amber and jiale 
blue glass. The six doors are the same, and the walls and 
the elaborate roof and cornices are pure white, the pro- 
jections being " picked out " in a pale shade of brown, 
hardly darker than amber. 

The following morning Miss Brace left on her retam 
home, and Mr. Douglas and I rode fourteen miles to tbe 
large village of Kahva Rukh, where we parted company. 
It is an uninteresting march over formless gravelly hills and 
small plains thinly grassed, imtil the Gardan-j-Kukh. one 
of the high passes on the Isfahan and Shnster route, is 
reached, with its extensive new of brown mountains ami 
yellow wastes. This pass, 7960 feet in altitude, cross- 
ing the unshapely Kuli-i-Eukli, is the watershed of the 
coimtry, all the streams on its southern side falling into 
the Karun. It is also the entrance to the Chahar Mahals 
or four districts, I^r, Kbya, Mizak. and Gandaman, whidi 
consist chiefly of great plains surrounded by mountains, 
and somewhat broken up by tlieir gravelly spurs. 

Beyond, and usually in sight, is the snow -slashed Kuh-i- 
Sukhta range, which runs south-east, and throws out > 
spur to Chigakhor, the summer resort of the Bakhtiari 
chiefs. The Chahar Malials, for Persia, are populous, 
and in some parts large villages, many of which art 
Armenian and Georgiau, occur at frequent intervals, most 
of them treeless, but all surrounded by cultivated lands, 
The Armenian villages possess so-called relics and ancient 



L LETTER SIV 



. FRANK HAKlM 



s of the Gospels, which are credited with the power 
f working miracles.' 

The Cliahar Mahals have been farmed to the Ukhaui 

' the Bakhtiaria for about 20,000 tiuna^ta (£6000) a 

r, and his brother, Reza Knli Khan, has been appointed 

r governor. Thus on crossing the Kahva Rukh pass 

entered upon the sway of the feudal head of the 

reat Bakhtiari tribes. 

We camped outside the village, my tents being pitched 

in a niinoufl enclosure. The servants are in the habit 

of calling me the Hakim, and the report of a Frank HaJnm 

having arrived soon brought a crowd of sick people, who 

were introduced and their ailments described by a blue 

horaeman, one of the escort. 

His own child was so dangerously ill of pneumonia 
that ] went with him to his house, put on a mustard 
potdtice, and administered some Dover's powder. The 
house was crammed and the little suffering creature had 
hardly air to breathe. The courtyard was also crowded, 
80 that one could scarcely move, all the people being quite 
pleasant and friendly. I saw several sick people, and 
was surprised to find the village houses so roomy and 
comfortable, and so full of " plenishings." It was in vain 
that I explained to them that I am not a doctor, scarcely 
L even a nnrse. The fame of Burroughes and Wellcoiiie's 

' Soma of the legends connected with these objects ure grossly super- 

itioos. At Shnrishghsn there is s " Holy Testament," regarding which 

IS story runs that it was once stolen by the Lars, who buried it under a 

I tree by the bank id a Htreain. Long iifterwnrds a man begnn to cut dovn 

I tba tree, but when the axe was laid to its root blood gushed forth. On 

L Marching for the cause of this miracle the Gospels were found unir^Jured 

It is believed that if any one were to take the Testament away it 

I vaald retam of its own accord. It has the reputntion of working miracles 

of healing, and msuy resort to it eitlier for themselves or for their sick 

friends, from Northern Penia and even from ShiiM, as wall aa from the 

vicinity, and vows are made before it The gifts presented to it become 

the property of its owners. 



no JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lbtteb m 

medicine chest has spread far and wide, and they think 
its possessor mv^l be a Hakim. The horseman said thnt 
medicine out of that chest would certainly cure hia 
child,' I was unable to go back to the t«a which had 
been prepared in the horseman's house, on which be 
expressed great dismay, and said I must be "enn^ 
with him." 

Persians always use round numbers, and the keichuda 
says that the village has 300 Persian houses, and 100 
more, inhabited during the winter by Ilyat& It has 
mud walls with towers at intervals, two mosques, a 
clear stream of water in the principal street, some Tery 
good houses with balaJchanas, and narrow alleys between 
high mud walls, in which are entrances into courtyaitls 
occupied by animals, and surrounded by Uviug-roonis. 
The only trees are a few spindly willows, but wheal 
comes up to the walls, and at sunset great herds of cattle 
and myriads of brown sheep converge to what seems 
quite a prosperous village. 

May 6. — Yesterday, Sunday, was intended to be a 
day of rest, but turned out very fat from iL After the 
last relay of "patients" left on Saturday evening, and 
the last medicines had been " dispensed," my tent was 
neatly ai-mnged with one yekdan for a table, and the other 
for a washstand and medicine stand. The latter trunk con- 
tained some English gold in a case along with some valu- 
able letters, and some bags, in which were 1000 krana, for 
four months' travelling. This yekdan was padlocked. It 
was a full moon, the other camps were quite near, all 
looked very safe, and I slept until awakened by the sharp- 
ness of the morning air. 

Then I saw but one yekdan where there had been 

' And so it did, though it was then so ill that it aecjticd unlilulj' thlt 
it TTouliI lire through the night, anil 1 told them u> before I girt tiM 
mpdicina, leat they should think that 1 lind killsd it. 



LETTER iiv A NOCTURNAL ROEBERV 311 

two ! Opeuing the tent curtain I found my washing 
apparatus and medicine bottles neatly arranged on the 
ground outside, and the trunk without its padlock among 
some ruins a short distance off. Tlie money bags were 
all gone, leaving me literally penniless. Most of my 
store of tea was taken, but nothing else. Two men 
must have entered my tent and have carried the trunk 
out. Of what use are any precautions when one sleeps 
so disgracefully soundly ? When the robbery was made 
known horsemen were sent off to the Ilkhani, whose 
guest I have been since I entered bis territory, and 
at night a Khan arrived with a message that "the 
money would be repaid, and that the village would be 
levelled with the ground'" Kahva Eukh will, I hope, 
stand for many years to come, but the stolen sum will be 
levied upon it, according to custom. 

The people ace extremely vexed at this occurrence, 
and I would rather have lost half the sum than that It 
should have happened to a guest. In addition to an 
escort of a Kbau and four men, the Ilkhani has given 
orders that we are not to be allowed to pay for anything 
I while in the country. This oi^der, after several battles, 
I successfully disobey. This morning, before any steps 
were taken to find the thief, and after all the loads 
were ready, officials came to the camps, and, by our wish, 
every man's baggage was unrolled and searched. Our 
Bervanta and charvadars are all Moslems, and each of 
them took an oath on the Koran, administered by a 
' mollah, that he was innocent of the theft. 

Ardal, Maij 9. — I left rather late, and with the 
I blue horseman, to whom suspicion generally pointed, 
I rode to Shamsabad, partly over gravelly wastes, passing 
p two mixed Moslem and Armenian villages on a plain, 
J on which ninety ploughs were at work on a stiff whitish 
■■ soil. 





S19 JOURNEYS IN PEIiSIA letteb lit 

Slmmsabad is a most wretched mud village without 
supplies, standing bare on a gravelly slope, above a clear 
quiet Btream, an affluent of the Karun. Tliis country 
has not reached that stage of civilisation in which a 
river bears the same name from mouth to source, ani! ax 
these streams usually take aa many names as there are 
villages on their course, I do not burden my memoiy 
with them. There is a charming camping-ground of 
level velvety green sward on the right bank of the river, 
with the towering mass of Jehanbin (sight of tlie world). 
12.000 feet high, not far off. This lawn is G735 feet 
above the sea, and the air keen and pleasant The 
near mountain views are grand, and that evening the rare 
glory of a fine sunset lingered till it was merged in the 
beauty of a perfect moonlight. 

After leaving Shanisabad the road passes through 
a rather fine defile, crosses the Shanisabad stream by a 
ceu-arcbed bridge between the Kiih-i-Zangun and the 
Kuh-i-Jehanbin, and proceeds down a narrow valley now 
full of wild flowers and young wheat to Khariji, a Tillage 
of fifty houses, famous for the excellent quality of its 
opium. From Khariji we proceeded through low grassy 
hills, much like the South Downs, and over the low but 
very rough Pasbandi Pass into an irrigated valley in 
which is the village of Shalamzar. I rode through it 
alone quite unmolested, but two days later the Sahib, 
passing through it with his servants, was insulted and 
pelted, and the people said, " Here's another of the d£^ 
party." These villagers are afflicted with " divers 
diseases and torments," and the crowd round my tent 
was unusually large and importunate. In this village of 
less than fifty houses nearly all the people had one or 
both eyes more or less affected, and fourteen had only 
one eye. 

Between Shalamzar and Ardal lies the lofty Gardan- 



LETTER srv TilE VALLEV OF SELIGUN 313 

i-Zirreb, by which the Kub-i-Sukhta ia crossed at a height 
of 8300 feet. The ascent begins soon after leaving the 
village, and is long and steep^a nasty climb. The upper 
part at this date is encumbered with snow, below which 
primulas are blooming in gi'eat profusion, and lower dowii 
leathery flowera devoid of beauty cover without adorning 
the hillside. Two peasants went up with me, and from 
time to time kindiy hauded me clusters of small raisins 
taken from the breasts of dirty felt clothing. On reach- 
ing the snow I found Rustem Khan's borse balf-buried 
in a drift, so I made the rest of the ascent on foot. The 
snow was three feet deep, but for the most part presented 
no diflicuities, even to the baggage animals. 

At the summit there were no green things except 
some plants of artiinista, not even a blade of grass, but 
among the crevices appeared small fragile snow-white 
tulips with yellow centres, mixed with scarlet and mauve 
bloMoms of a more vigorous make. At that great height 
the air was keen and bracing, and to eyes for months ac- 
customed to regions buried in dazzling snow and to glaring 
gravelly wastes, there was something perfectly entrancing 
about the view on the Bakhtiarl side. Though treeless, it 
looked like Paradise. Lying at the foot of the pass is the 
deep valley of Selignn, 8000 feet high, with the range 
[■ of the Kuh-i-Nassar to the aoutli. and of the Kub-Shah- 
I Pumar to the nortli — green, full of springs and streams, 
I with two lakes bringing down the blue of lieaven to earth, 
' with slopes aflame with the crimson and terra-cotta Friiil- 
iaria imperialis, and levels one golden glory with a yellow 
ranunculus. Rich and dark was the green of the grass, 
tall and deep on the plain, but when creeping up the 
ravines to meet the snows, short green sward enamelled 
with tulips. Great masses of naked rock, snow-slashed, 
rand ranges of snow-topped masses behind and above, 
L walled in that picture of cool serenity, its loneliness only 



JOUHNEVS IN- PERSIA 

broken by threa black tenta of Ilyats far away. So I saw 
Seliguu, but those who see it a month hence will find 
only a brown and dusty plain ! 

The range we crossed divides the Cbaliar Mahals from 
the true Bakhtiari country, a land of mountains which 
rumour crests with eternal snow, of unexplored valleys 
and streams, of feudal chiefs, of blood feuds, and of 
nomad tribes moving with vast iiocks and herds. 

Mehemet All, a new and undesirable acquisition, was 
loaded with my shutdari, and we clambered down the 
hillside, leading our horses amidst tamarisk scrub and a 
glory of tulips, till we reached the level, when a gallop 
brought us to the camps, pitched near a vigorous spring 
in the green liower-enamelled grass. 

That halt was luxury for man and beast Later the 
air was cool and moist The sun-lit white fleeces wliich 
had been rolling among the higher hills darkened and 
thickened into rain-clouds, drifting stormily, and only 
revealing here and there through their rifts glimpses of 
blue, A few flocks of sheep on the mountains, and the 
mules and horses revelling knee-deep in the juicy grass, 
were the sole representatives of animated life. It was 
a real refreshment to be away from the dust of mud 
villages, and to escape from the pressure of noisy aod 
curious crowds, and the sight of sore eyes. 

Towards evening, a gallop on the Arabs with the 
Bakhtiari escort took us to the camp of the lately-arrived 
Ilyats. Orientals spend much of their time in the quiet 
contemplation of cooking pots, and these nomads were 
not an exception, for they were all sitting raund a brush- 
wood fire, on which the evening meal of meat broth with 
herbs was being prepared. The women were unveiled. 
Both men and women are of quite a different type from 
the Persiana They are completely clothed and in 
appearance are certainly only semi-savages. These tents 



LETTER XIV A TRIBAL MIGRATION 315 

conaisteil of stones rudely laid to a height of two feet at 
the back, over which there is a canopy with an open 
front and sides, of woven go.it's-hair supported on poles. 
Such tenta are barely a shelter from wind and rain, but in 
them generations of Ilyata are born and die, despising 
those of their race who settle in villages. 

There were great neutral-tint masses of rolling clouds, 
great banks of glistering whit« clouds, a cold roystering 
wind, a lurid glow, and then a cloudy twilight. IfaJclm 
threw up his heels and galloped over the moist grass, the 
Bakhtiaris, two on one horse, laughed and yelled — there 
was the desert freedom without the dasert. It was the 
most inspiriting evening I have spent in Persia. Truth 
compels me to add that there were legions of black flies. 

In the early morning, after riding round the south- 
east end of the valley, we passed by the lake Seligun or 
Albolaki, hanked up by a revetment of rude masonry. 
The wind was strong, and drove the foam-flecked water 
in a long line of foam ou the shore. Eed-legged storks 
were standing in a row fishing. Cool scuds of rain made 
the morning homelike. Then there was a hill ascent, 
from which the view of snowy mountains, gashed by 
deep ravines and backed by neutral-tint clouds, was 
magnificent, and then a steep and rocky defile, which 
involved walking, its sides gaudy with the FritUlai-ia 
imperialis, which here attains a size and a depth of colour- 
ing of which we have no conception. 

la this pass we met a large number of llyat families 
going up to their summer quarters, with their brown 
flocks of sheep and their black flocks of goats. Their 
tents with all their other goods were packed in con- 
venient parcels on small cows, and the women with 
babies and big wooden cradles were on asses. The 
women without babies, the elder children, and the men 
I walked. 



316 .TOCRNEVS IN PERSIA lettkh m 

Whatever beauty these women possessed was in the 
Meg Merrileea style, with a certain weirdueas about it. 
They had large, dark, long eyes, with well-marked eye- 
brows, artificially prolonged, straight prominent noses. 
wide mouths with thin lips, long straight chins, ami 
masses of black hair falling on each side of the face. 
Their dress consisted of enonnonsly full dark blue cotton 
trousers, drawn in at the ankles, and suspended over ibe 
hips, nut from tlie waist (the invariable custom in 
Persia), and loose sleeved vests, open in front. The 
adult women all wear a piece of cotton pinned on the 
head, and falling over the back and shoulders. The men 
had their hair in many long plaits, hanging from under 
felt skull-caps, and wore wide blue cotton trousers, white 
or printed cotton shirts over these, and girdles in which 
they carried knives, pipes, and otiier indispensablee. 
All wore shoes or sandals of some kind. These men 
were very swarthy, but the younger women had rich 
brunette complexions, and were unveiled. 

Some bad horse-fights worried the remainder of the 
march, wliich included the ascent of an anemone-covered 
hill, 7700 feet high, from which we got the first view of 
the Ardal valley, much cultivated, till it narrows and la 
lost among mountains, now partly covered with aiiow. 
In the centre is a large building with a tower, the spring 
residence of the Ilkhani, whose goodwill it b necessaiy 
to secure. Through a niagtiificent gorge in the mountains 
passes tfie now famous Karuu. A clatter of rain and a 
strong wind greeted our entrance into the valley, where 
we were met by some horsemen from the llkiiani. 

The great Ardal plateau is itself treeless, though the 
lower spurs of the Kiih-i-Sabz on the south side are well 
wooded with the bdiit, a species of oak. There is much 
cultivation, and at this season the nncultivated ground 
is covered with the great green leaves of a fodder plant. 



[ LETTER jiv ARRIVAL AT AKDAL 317 

! Centaurea aiata, which a little later ore cut, drieil, 
tnd stacked. The rivers of the plateau aru the Kaniii 
1 Sabzu on the south aide, and the river of Sharnsabad, 
wliicli brings to the Kaiun the drainage qf the Cliahar 
liahals, and enters the valley through a magnificent taiui 
• chasm on its north side, called Darkash Warkash. 
The village of Ardal is eighty-five miles from Isfahan, 
on the Shuster caravan route, and is about 200 from 
Shustfr. Its altitude is 5970 feet, its Long. 50° 50' E. 
and its Lat. 32^ N. 

On arriving here the grandeur of tlie Ilkhani'a house 
faded away. Except for the fortified tower it looks like 
a second-rate caravanserai. The village, such as there is 
of it, is crowded on a steep slope outside the "Palace," 
It is a miserable hamlet of low wiudowless mud hovels, 
with unevun mud floors, one or two feet lower than the 
ground outside, built in yards with ruinous walls, and 
full of heaps and holes. It is an olla jmdrida of dark, 
jKJor, smoky mud huts ; narrow dirt-heaped alleys, with 
bones and offal lying about ; gaunt yelping dogs ; bottle- 
green slimy pools, and ruins. The people are as dirty 
as the Louses, but they are fine in physique and face, as 
if only the fittest survive. There is an imavixoAct, much 
visited on Fridays, on an adjacent slope. The snow lies 
here five feet deep in winter, it is said. 

When we arrived the roofs and balconies of the 

Xlkhani's house were crowded with people looking out 

for us. The Agba called at once, and I sent my letter 

of introduction from, the Amin-es-Sullan. IVesents 

arrived, formal visits were paid, the Ilkhaui's principal 

wife appointed an hour at which to receive me, and a 

number of dismounted horsemen came and escorted me 

' to the palace. The chief feature of the house is a lai^ 

I audience-chamber over the entrance, in which the chief 

I holds a daily durbar, the deep balcony outside being 



818 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letteb nv 

usually thronged hy crowds of tnbesmen all liavmg free 
access to b The com ng and go ng are incesaant. 

The J alace or cattle "^ 1 ke a two stoned caravanaeiai, 
enclosing a lart,e unt dy urtjard round wh ch are 
stables a 1 cow ho sea and dens for soldiers and 
servants In tl e outer front of ti e bu Iding are deep 
recessed arches w th rooms open ng upon them in which 
the Isfahan traders who come here for a month expose 




their wares. Passing under the Ilkhaui's audience- 
chamber by a broad arched passage with deep recesses 
ou both sides, and through the forlorn uneven courtyaid, 
a long, dark arched passage leads into a second court- 
yard, where there ia an attempt at ornament by means 
of tanks and willowa Kound this are a number of 
living-rooms for the Ilkbani's sons and their families, and 
here is the andarun, or house of the women. On the far 
side is the Fort, a tall square tower with loopholes and 
embrasures. 

A Cerberus guards the entrance to the andamn, but 



LETTER iiv HAIR D'i'ES 319 

he allowed Mirza to accompany me. A few steps lead 
up from the courtyard into a lofty oblong room, with a 
deep cushioned recess containing a fireplace. The roof 
rests on woodau pillars. The front of the room facing 
the courtyard is entirely of fretwork filled in with pale 
blue and amber glass. The recess and part of the floor 
were covered with very beautiful blue and white grounded 
carpets, made by the women. The principal wife, a 
comely wide-mouthed woman of forty, advanced to meet 
me, kissed my hand, raised it to her brow, and sat down 
on a large carpet squab, while the other wives led me 
into the recess, and seated me on a pile of cushions, 
taking their places in a row on the floor opposite, but 
scarcely raising their eyes, and never speaking one word. 
The rest of the room was full of women and children 
standing, and many more blocked up the doorways, all 
crowding forward in spite of objurgations and smart slaps 
frequently administered by the principal wife. 

The three young wives are Bakhtiaris, and their style 
of beauty is novel to me — straight noses, wide mouths, 
thill lips, and long chins. Each has three stars tattooed 
on her chin, one iu the centre of the forehead, and 
several on the back of the hands. The eyebrows are 
not only elongated with indigo, but are made to meet 
across the nose. The finger-nails, and inside of the 
hands, are stained with henna. The hair hangs round 
I their wild, handsome faces, down to their collar-bones, in 
loose, heavy, but not uncleanly masses. 

Among the " well-to-do " Bakhtiari women, as among 
L the Peraians, the hair receives very great attention, 
I although it is seldom exhibited. It ia naturally jet 
1 black, and very abundant. It is washed at least once a 
I week with a thin paste of a yellowish clay found among 
1 the Zard-Kuh mountains, which has a very cleansing effect- 
But the women are not content with their hair aa it 



is, aud alter its tinge by elaborate arts. Tbey make a 
thick paste of heuna, leave it on for two hours, and then 
wash it off. The result is a rich auburn tint. A siiullar 
paste, made of powdered indigo leaves, ia tbeu plastered 
over the hair for two hours. Ou its removal the locks 
are dark green, but in twenty-four hours more tliev 
become a rich blue-black. The process needs repeating 
about evei^- twenty days, but it helps to fill up the 
infinite leisure of life. It is performed by the batb 
attendants. 

In justice to my sex I must add that the men dye 
their hair to an equal extent with the women, from the 
shining blue-black of the Shah's moustache to the briiliani 
orange of the beard of Hadji Hussein, by which he 
forfeits, though not in Persian estimation, the respect 
due to age. 

Some of the Ilkhani's children and grand -chihireD 
have the hair dyed witli henna alone to a rich aubnm 
tint, which is very becoming to the auburn eyes and 
delicate paleness of some of them. 

Tlie wives wore euormously full black silk troiisec^ 
drawn tight at the ankles, with an interregnum between 
them and short black vests, loose and open in front ; amJ 
black silk sheets attached to a baud fixed ou the head 
enveloped their persons. They have, as is usual among 
these people, small and beautiful hands, with taper 
fingers and nails carefully kept. The chief wife, who 
rules the others, rumour says, was also dressed in black, 
She has a certain degree of comely dignity about her, 
and having seen something of the outer world in s 
pilgrimage to Mecca rid Baghdad, returning by Kgypt and 
Pei-sia, and having also lived in Tilirau, her Jntelligeuce 
has been somewhat awakened. The Hakhtiari women 
generally are neither veiled nor secluded, but Uie higher 
chiefs who have been at the capital think it t^ic to 



m 



I XIV FEMALE PROPRIEXy 321 

the Persian customs regarding nomen, and the 
or chiefs, when they have houses, follow their 
cample. 

My conversation with the " queen " consisted chieBy 

^ question and answer, varied by an occasional divei^- 

n her part into au animated talk with Mirza 

KYusuf. Among the many questions asked were these : 

Eat what age our women marry ? how many wives the 

gha has ? how long our women are allowed to keep 

r boys with them ? why I do not dye my hair ? if I 

now of anything to take away wrinkles ? to whiten 

ieth ? etc,, if our men divorce their wives when they 

ftare forty ? why Mr. had refused a Eakhtiari wife ? 

I'if I am travelling to collect herbs '. if I am looking for 
■ the plant which if found would turn the base metals 
into gold ? etc. 

She said they had very dull lives, and knew nothing 

of any customs but their own ; that they would like to see 

the Agha, who, they heard, was a head taller than their 

tallest men ; that tliey hoped I should be at Chigakhor 

when they were there, as it would be less dull, and she 

apologised for not offering tea or sweetmeata, as it is the 

fast of the Eamazau, which they observe very strictly. I 

told tliem that the Agha wished to take their photographs, 

and the Hadji Ilkhani along with them. They were 

quite delighted, but it occurred to them that they must 

first get the Ilkhani's consent. This was refused, and 

one of his sous, whose wife ia very handsome, said, " We 

cannot allow pictures to be made of our women. It ia 

not our custom. We cannot allow pictures of our women 

L to be in strange hands. No good women have their 

i pictures taken. Among the tribes you may fiud women 

I base enough to be photographed." The chief wife offered 

to make me a present of her grandson, to whom I am 

' giving a tonic, if I can make him strong and cure his 

VOL. 1 Y 



3SS JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettes m 

deafness. He U a pule precocious child of t^ witli 
hazel eyes and hair made artificially auburn. 

When the remarkably frivolous conversation flagged, 
they brought children afflicted with such maladies aa 
oplithalmia, scabies, and sore eyes to be cured, but rejected 
my dictum that a copious use of soap and water must 
precede all remedies. Among the adults headaches, loss 
of appetite, and dyspepsia seem the prevailing ailments. 
Love potions were asked for, and charms to bring back 
lost love, with special earnestness, and the woful looks 
assumed when I told the applicants that I could do 
nothing for them were sadly suggestive. There couM 
not have been fewer than sixty women and ctiildren in 
the room, many, indeed most of them, fearfully dirty in 
dress and person. Among them were several negro and 
mulatto slaves. When I came away the balconies and 
arches of the Ilkhani's house were full of men, anxious 
to have a good view of the Feringhi woman, but there 
was no rudeness there, or in the village, which I walked 
through afterwards with a courtesy escort of several dis- 
mounted horsemen. 

After this the Ilkhani asked me to go to see a man 
who is very ill, and sent two of his retainers with me. 
It must be understood that Mirza Yusuf goes with me 
everywhere as attendant and interpreter. The house was 
a dark room, with a shed outside, in a filthy yard, in 
which children, goats, and dogs were rolling over each 
other in a foot of powdered mud. Crowds of men were 
standing in and about the shed. I made my way through 
them, moving them to right and left with my hande, with 
the recognised supremacy of a Rakua ! There were some 
wadded quilts on the grouud, and another covered ■ 
form of which notldng was visible but two feet, deadly 
cold. The only account that the bystanders could gi« 
of the illness was, that four days ago the niaa tinted, 



IV A DYING BAKHTIARI 323 

. that since he had not been able to eat, speak, or 
The face was covered with several folds of a very 
rty chadar. On removing it 1 was startled by seeing, 
t a sick man, but the o^u mouth, gasping respiration, 
isy eyes of a dying man. His nostrils had been 
«ffed with moist mud and a chopped aromatic herb 
! feet were uncovered, and the limbs were quite cold. 
ire was no cruelty in this. The men about him were 
it kind, but absolutely ignorant. 
I told them that he could hardly survive the night, 
ind that all I could do was to help him to die comfort- 
ibly. They said with one clamorous voice that they 
irould do whatever I told them, and in the remaining 
■s they kept their word. I bade them cleanse the 
. from his nostrils, WTap the feet and legs in warm 
cloths, give him air, and not crowd round him. Under 
less solemn circumstances I should have been amused 
with the absolute docility with which these big savage- 
looking men obeyed me. I cut up a blanket, and when 
they had heated some water in their poor fashion, 
showed them how to prepare fomentations, put on the 
first myself, and bathed his face and hands. 

He was clothed in rags of felt and cotton, evidently 
never changed since the day they were put on, though he 
was what they call " rich,"— a great owner of mares, flocks, 
and herds, — and the skin was scaly with decades of dirt 
I ventured to pour a little sal-volatile and water down his 
throat, and the glassy eyeballs moved a little. I asked 
the bystanders if, as Moslems, they would object to his 
taking some spirits medicinally ? They were willing, but 
said ^ere was no arcd: in the Bakhtiari country, a happy 
exemption ! The Agha's kindness supplied some whisky, 
of which from that time the dj-ing man took a teaspoon- 
I fhl, much diluted, eveiy two hours, tossed down his throat 
rwith a spoon, Allah being always invoked. There was 



324 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LErreR iiv 

no woman's gentleDess to sootiie his last hours. A wife 
in the dark den inside was weaving, and once came oat 
and looked carelessly at him, but men did for him bU 
that he required with a tenderness and kindness which 
were very pleasing, Before I left they asked for directions 
over again, and one of the Ilkhani's retainers wrote them 
down. 

At night the Ilkhani sent to say that the man was 
tnnch better and he hoped I would go and see him. 
The scene was yet more weird than in the daytime, 
A crowd of men were sitting and standing round a fire 
outside the shed, and four were watching the djfing tt"" 
The whisky had revived him, his pulse was better, the 
fomentation had relieved tlie pain, and when it was re- 
applied he had uttered the word " good." I tried to make 
them understand it was only a last flicker of life, but 
tliey thought he would recover, and the Ilkhani sent to 
know what food he should have. 

At dawn "' death music," wild and sweet, rang out on 
the still air; he died painlessly at midnight, and vw 
carried to the grave twelve hours later. 

When people are very ill their friends give them 
food and medicine (if a HaMm be attainable), till, in 
their judgment, the case is hopeless. Then they send 
for a mollak, who reads the Koran in a very loud sing- 
song tone till death ensues, the last thirst being aUeriated 
meantime by skarbat dropped into the mouth. Camphor 
and other sweet spices are burned at the grave. If Ul*/ 
bum well and all is pure afterwards, they say that ti» 
deceased person has gone to heaven ; if they bum feeblj 
and smokily, and tliere is any unpleasantness from tin 
grave, they say that the spirit is in perdition. A 
Sakhtiari gra\'e is a very shallow trench. 

The watchers were kind, and carried out my directioDi 
faithfully. I give these minute details to show how vai^ 



IMAM KULI KHAN 325 

(Ten simple uuraing can do to mitigate suffering among 

pie 90 extremely ignorant as the Bakhtiaria are not 

aly of the way to tend the sick, but of the virtues of 

ihe medicinal plants which grow in abundance around 

A medical man itinerating among their camps 

litb a light hospital tent and some simple iustniments 

medicines could rio a great deal of healing, and 

much also to break down the strong prejudice which 

ista against Christianity. Here, as elsewhere, the 

UaHm is respected. Going in that capacity I found 

i people docile, respectful, and even grateful. Had I 

[one among them in any other, a Cliristian Feringhi 

Iroman would certainly have encountered rudeness and 



The Ilkhani, who has not been in a hurry to call, 
ide a formal visit to-day with his brother, Eeza Kiili 
[han, his eldest son Lutf, another son, Ghulam, with Ijad 

iieyes, and a crowd of retainers. The Hadji Hkhaui, — 
Imam Kuli Khan, the great feudal chief of the Bakhtiari 
tribes, is a quiet-looking middle-aged man with a short 
black beard, a parchment-coloured complexion, and a face 
somewhat lined, with a slightly sinister expression at 
times. He wore a white felt cap, a blue fnll-skirted 
coat lined with green, another of fine buff kerseymere 
under it, with a girdle, and very wide black silk trousers. 
He is a man of some dignity of deportment, and hia 
usnal expression is somewhat kindly and courteous. He 
J9 a devout Moslem, and has a finely-illuminated copy of 
the Koran, which he spends much time in reading. He 
is not generally regarded as a very capable or powerful 
man, and is at variance with the Hbegi, who, though 
nominally second chief, practically shares his power. In 
fact, at this time serious intrigues are going on, and some 

L Bay that the adherents of the two cliiefs would not be 

f unwilling to come to open war. 





SBfl JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lettkb iif 

The greatest men who in thia century have filled the 
office of llkhani both perished miserably. The fate nf 
Sir H. Layard's friend, Meheniet Taki Khan, ia well known 
to all readers of the Early Reeolltctions, but it itss 
possibly less unexpected than that of Hussein Kuli Kiian. 
brother of the present llkhani, and father of the Hbe,-! 
Isfandyar Khan. This man was evidently an enligbteuci 




and able ruler; be suppressed brigandage with a firm lianil 
and desired to see the Mohamnierah-Shuster-Isfaliu 
route fairly opened to trade. He went so far as to 
promise Mr, Mackenzie, of one of the leading Peraian 
Guif firms, in writing, that he would hold himself 
personally responsible for the safety of caravans in their 
passage through his territory, and would repay any lossei 
by robbery. He agreed to take a third share of the 
cost of the necessary steamers on the Karun, and to 



IiKTTER XIV 



BAKHTIARI POLITICS 



fumiali 100 mules for land transport between Shuster 
and Isfahsn.^ 

It appears that Persian jealousy was excited by 
liis enterprising spirit; he fell under the displeasure 
tlie Zil-es-Sultan, and in 1882 was put to death 
by poison while on his annual visit of homage. The 
present Hkbani. who succeeded him, warned possibly by 
. brother's fate, is said to show little, if any, interest 
commercial enterprise, and to have made the some- 
what shrewd remark that the English " under the dress 
f the merchant often conceal the uniform of the soldier." 
In 1888 the Shah relented towards Hussein Kuli 
'Khan's sons, the eldest of whom, Isfandyar Khan, had 
been in prison for seven years, and they with their uncle, 
Beza Kuli Khan, descended with their followers and a 
small Persian army upon the plaiu of Chigakhor, where 
they surprised and defeated the Hadji Ilkhani, His 
' brother, Eeza, was thereupon recognised by the Shah as 
Ilkhani, and Isfandyar as Ilbegi, with the substance of 
power. Another turn of the wheel of fortune, and the 
brothers became respectively Ilkhani and Governor of the 
Chahar Mahals, and their nephew is reinstated as Hbegi.^ 
The Ilkhani'a word is law, within broad limits, among 
the numerous tribes of Bakhtiari Lurs who have con- 
sented to recognise him as their feudal head, and it has 
been estimated that in a popular quarrel he could bring 
from 8000 to 10,000 armed horsemen into the field. He 
ria judge as well aa ruler, but in certain cases there is a 
l.'possible appeal to Tihran from his decisions. He is 
■ appointed by the Shah, with a salary of lOOO tiimans 
year, but a strong man in his position could be 
practically independent. 

' Pnxeedingt of R. O. S., vol. v. No. 3, New Series. 
* I ant indebted for the information given above to a valuable paper 
3. BlossD Lynch, givea in the ProcttdiHgt of the E. G. S. for 



JOUBNEYS IN PERSIA 

It can scarcely be auppoaed that the present Dkhani 
will long retain his uneasy seat against tUe intrigues at 
the Persian court, and with a powerful and popular 
rival close at hand. It is manifestly the interest of the 
Shah's government to weaken the tribal power, and 
extinguish the authority and independence of the 
principal 'chiefs, and the Oriental method of attaimni; 
this end is by plots and intrigues at the capital, by 
creating and fomenting local quarrels, and by oppressive 
taxation. It is not wonderful, therefore, that many of 
the principal Khans, whose immemurial freedom baa been 
encroached upon in many recent years by the Tihtnn 
Government, should look forward to a day when one of 
the Western powers will occupy south-west Peisia, sad 
give them security. 

The Hadji Ilkhani, for the people always prefix the 
religious title, discussed the proposed journey, promiMd 
me an escort of a horseman and a tif/anijchi, or foot- 
Boldier, begged us to consider ourselves here and every- 
where as his guests, and to ask for all we want, here and 
elsewhere. His brother, Keza Kuli Khan, who has played 
an important part in tribal affairs, resembles bim, but 
the sinister look is more persistent on his face. He 
was much depressed by the fear that he was going blind, 
but on trying my glasses be found he could see. The 
surprise of the old-sighted people when they find that 
spectacles renew their youth is most interesting. 

Another visitor has been the Ilbegi, Isfandyar Eban. 
Though not tall, he is very good - looking, and has 
beautiful hands and feet He is able, powerful, and 
ambitious, inspires his adherents with great personal 
devotion, and is regarded by many aa the " coming man." 
He was in Tihran when I was in Julfa, and hearing 
from one of the Ministers that I was about to visit the 
Bakhtiari country, he wrote to a general of cavalry in 



4 



EB ziv CELERITY OF JUSTICE 329 

Isfahan, asking him to provide me with an escort if I 
needed it. I was glad to thank him for his courtesy in 
this rafttter, and for more substantial help. Before his 
visit, his retainer, Mansur, brought me the money of 
which I had been robbed in Kahva Rukh ! This man 
absolutely refused a present, saying that his liege lord 
would nearly kill him if he took one. Isfandyar Khau 
welcomed me kindly, regretting much that my first night 
under Bakhtiari rule should have been marked by a 
robbery. He said that before hia day tlie tribesmen not 
only robbed, but killed, and that he had reduced them to 
such order that he was surprised as well as shocked at 
this occurrence. I replied that it occurred in a Persian 
village, and that in many countries one might be robbed, 
but in none that I knew of would such quick restitution 
be made 

In cases of robbery, the Ilkhani sends round to the 
Tcetchudas or headmen of the camps or villages of the 
offending district, to replace the money, as in my case, or 
the value of the thing taken, after which the thief must 
be caught if possible. When caught, the headmen 
consult as to his punishment, which may be the cutting 
off of a band or nose, or to be severely branded. In any 
case he must be for the future a marked man. I gather 
that the most severe penalties are rarely inflicted. I 
hope the fine of 800 hraiis levied on Kahva Rukh may 
stimulate the people to surrender the thief. I agreed to 
forego 200 brans, as Isfandyar Khan says that his men 
raised all they could, and the remaining sum would ha^'e 
to be paid by himself. 

After a good deal of earnest conversation he became 
' frivolous I He asked the Agha his age, and guessed it at 
I thirty-five. On being enliglitened he asked if he dyed 
' }U8 hair, and if his teeth were his own. Then he said 
[ that he dyed his own hair, and wore artificial teeth. He 



330 



JOUEXEVS IS PERSIA 



also asked my age. He and Lutf and Ghulam, tLe 
Ilkhani's sons, who accompanied him, possess superb 
watches, with two dials, and an arrangement for showing 
the phases of the moon. 

Having accepted an invitation from the Ilbegi to vifflt 
him at Naghun, a viUt^ ten miles from Ardal, accom- 
panied by Lutf and Ghulam, we were ready at seven, 
the hour appointed, as the day promised to be very hot 
Eight o'clock came, nine o'clock, half-past nine, and on 
sending to see if the young Khans were coming, the 
servants repUed that they had " no orders to wake them." 
So we Europeans breiled three hours in the sun at the 
pleasure of " barbarians " ! 

During the Bamazan these people revel from sunset 
to sunrise, with feasting, music, singing, and merrimwit,; 
and then they lie in bed till noon or later, to abridge tb 
long hours of the fast. " Is it such a fast that I hxt 
chosen ? " may well be asked. 

The noise during the night in the Ilkhani's palace J 
tremendous. The festivities begin soon after sunset onj 
go on till an hour before dawn. Odours agreeable il 
Bakhtiari noses are wafted down to my tent, but I d 
not find them appetising. An eatable called zalabi is ^ 
great request during the Ramazan. It is made by mixiq 
sugar and starch with oil of sesanmm, and is poured t 
ready heated copper trays, and frizzled into frittei 
Masses of eggs mixed with rice, clarified butter, and jam 
concealing balls of highly-spiced mincemeat, Icabobs, ani 
mutton stewed with preserved lemon juice and onions an 
favourite dishes at the Ilkhani's, 

Besides the music and singiug, the " Court " entertain 
itself nightly with performing monkeys and dancing ram 
besides story-tellers, and reciters of the poetry of Hafi] 
It is satisfactory to know that the uproarious merrimen 
which drifts down to my tent along with odours of 




LETTER XIV A BAKHTIARl ENTERTAINMENT 331 

petual fryiug, owes none of its inspiration to alcohol, 
coffee anil sharhat being the drinks consumed. 

We rode without a guide down the Ardal valley, took 
the worst road through some deep and blazing gulches, 
found the sun fierce, and the treelessnesa irksome, saw 
much ploughing, made a long ascent, and stopped short 
of the village of Naghun at a large walled garden on the 
arid hillside, which irrigation has turned into a shady 
paradise of pear, apricot, and walnut trees, with a 
luxurious undergrowth of roses and ^wmegranatea. The 
young Khans galloped up just as we did, laughing heartily 
at having slept so late. All the village men were 
gathered to see the Feringhis, and the Ilbegi and his 
brothers received us at the garden gate, all shaking hands. 
Certainly this Khan has much power in his face, and his 
dignified and easy manner is that of a leader of men. 
His dress was becoming, a handsome dark blue cloak 
lined with scarlet, and with a deep fur collar, over his 
ordinary costume. 

So much has been said and written about the Bakh- 
tdaris being " savages " or " semi-savages," that the enter- 
taitunent which followed was quite a surprise to me. 
Two fine canopy tents were pitched in the shade, and 
handsome cai'pets were laid in them, and under a spread- 
ing walnut tree a kard, or iire cover, covered with a rug, 
served as a table, and cigarettes, a bowl of ice, a glass jug 
of sharhat, and some tumblers were neatly arranged upon 
it. Iron chairs were provided for the European guesta, 
and the Ilbegi, his brothers, the Ilkhani's sons, and others 
sat round the border of the carpet on which they were 
placed. There were fully fifty attendants. Into the 
midst of this masculine crowd, a male nurse brought the 
Ilbegi's youngest child, a dark, quiet, pale, wistful little 
girl of four years old, a daintily-dressed little creature, 
with a crimson velvet cap, and a green and crimson velvet 






393 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter hv 

frock. She was gentle and confiding, and liked to remain 
with me. 

After a long conversation on subjects more or less 
worth speaking upon, our hosta retired, to sleep under the 
trees, leaving us to eat, and a number of servants brought 
in a large karst covered with food. Several yards of 
blanket bread, or " flapjacks," served as a table-cloth, and 
another for the dish-cover of a huge pilluu in the centre. 
Cruets, plates, knives and forks, iced water, Russian 
lemonade, and tumblers were all provided. The dlnneT 
consisted of pillau, lamb cutlets, a curried fowl, celery 
with sour sauce, clotted cream, and sour milk. The 
food was well cooked and clean, and the servants, rough 
as they looked, were dexterous and attentive. 

After dinner, by the llbegi's wish, I paid s visit 
to the ladies of his karam. Naghun rivals the other 
villages of the tribes in containing the meanest aud 
worst permanent habitations I have ever seen. Isfandyai 
Khan's house is a mud building surrounding a courtyard, 
through wliich the visitor passes into another, round 
which are the women's apartments. Both yards were 
forlorn, uneven, and malodorous, from the heaps of offal 
and rubbish lying under the hot sun. I was received by 
fifteen ladies in a pleasant, clean, whitewashed apartment, 
with bright rugs and silk-covered pillows on the floor, 
and glass bottles and other ornaments in the (aJcchtihs. 

At the top of the room I was welcomed, not by the 
principal wife, but by a portly middle-aged woman, the 
Khan's sister, and evidently the duenna of the haram, aa 
not one of the other women ventured to speak, or to oifer 
any courtesies. A chair was provided for me with a 
kaTsi in front of it, covered with trays of guz and other 
sweetmeats, Mirza and a male attendant stood in the 
doorway, and outside shoals of women and children ou 
tip-toe were stmggling for a glance into the room. 



LKTTER XIV THE ILBEGI'S WIVES 333 

Several slaves were present, coal-black, woolly- headed, 
huge-moiitlied negresaes. The fifteen ladies held their 
gay chadars to their faces ao as to show only one eye, so 
I sent Mirza beldnd a curtain and asked for the pleasure 
of seeing their faces, when they all unveiled with shrieks 
of laughter. 

The result was disappointing. The women were all 
young, or youngish, but only one was really handsome. 
The wives are brunettes with long chins. They wore 
gay chadars of muslin, short gold -embroidered jackets, 
gauze chemises, and bright - coloured balloon trousers. 
Three of the others wore black satin balloon trousers, 
black silk jackets, yellow gauze vests, and black chadars 
spotted with white. These three were literally moon- 
faced, like the representations of the moon on old clocks, 
a type I have not yet seen. All wear the hair brought 
to the front, where it hangs in wavy masses on each side 
of tlie face. They wore black silk gold-erabroidered 
skull-caps, set back on their beads, and long chains of 
gold coins from the back to the ear, with two, three, or 
four long necklaces of the same in which the coins were 
very lat^ and handsome. One wife, a young creature, 
was poorly dressed, very dejected -looking, and destitute 
of ornaments. Her mother has since pleaded for some- 
thing " to bring back her husband's love." The eyebrows 
were painted with indigo and were made to meet in a 
point on the bridge of the nose. £ac)i had one stained 
01 tattooed star on her forehead, three on her chin, and a 
galaxy on the back of each hand. 

Before Mirza reappeared they huddled themselves up 
in their chadars and sat motionless against the wall as 
before. After tea I had quite a lively conversation with 
the Khan's sister, who has been to Basrah, Baghdad, and 
Mecca. 

3 the usual questions as to my age, dyeing my 



834 JOUUKEVS IX PERSIA letteb nv 

hair, painting my face, etc., witli suggestions on Uie 
improvement which their methods would make on my 
eyes and eyebrows, ahe asked a little about my journeys, 
about the marriage customs of England, about divorce, the 
position of women with us, their freedom, horsemanship, 
and amusements. She said, " We don't ride, we sit on 
horses." Dancing for amusement she could not undet- 
Etand. " Our servants dance for us." she said. The 
dancing of men and women together, and the evenii^' 
dress of Englishwomen, she thought conti'ary to the 
elementary principles of moralitj', I wanted them to have 
their photographs taken, but they said, " It is not the 
custom of our country ; no good women have their picturea 
taken, we should have many things said against us if 
we were made into pictures." 

They wanted to give me presents, but I made my 
usual excuse, that I have made a rule not to receive 
presents in tmvelliug ; then they said that they would 
go and see me in my tent at Chigakhor, their summer 
quarters, and tliat I could not refuse what they took ia 
their own hands. They greatly desired to see the Agha, 
of wlioae imposing ^/tyfft^Hc they had heard, but they said 
that the Khan would not like them to go to the garden, 
and that their wish must remain ungratified. " We lead 
such dull lives," the Khan's sister exclaimed ; "we never 
see any one or go anj-whei-e." It seems that the slightest 
development of inteilect awakens them to the cod- 
sciouaness of this deplorable dulnesa, of which, fortunately, 
the unawakened intelligence is unaware. As a fact, two 
of the ladies have not been out of the Ardal valley, and 
are looking forward to the migration to the Chigakhor 
valley as to a great gaiety. 

They asked me if I could read, and if I made carpets t 
They invariably ask if I have a husband and chJldreD. 
and when I tell them that I am a widow and childless, 



amBR iiv A KINDLY HYPOCRISY 335 

Siey simulate weeping for one or two minutes, a hypocrisy 
ffhich, though it proceeds fi'om a Hndly feeling, has a 
rery painful effect. Their occupation in the winter is a 
little caipet- weaving, which takes the place of our " fancy- 
»ork." They also make a species of noiigat, from the 
Boanna found on the oaks oti some of their mountains, 

.ed with chopped almonds and rose-water. When I 
Eoncluded my visit tliey sent a servant with me with a 
ly of this and other sweetmeats of their own making. 

The party in the garden was a very merry one. The 
Bakhtiaris love fun, and shrieked with laughter at many 
Hings. This jollity, however, did not exclude topics of 
interesting talk. During this time Kariui,, a handsome 
chestnut Arab, and my horse Screu! had a fierce fight, and 
iKarim, a Eeloochi, in separating them had his arm severely 
crunched and torn, the large muscles being exposed and 
lacerated. He was brought in faint and bleeding, and in 
pain, and will not be of any use for some time. 
The Agha asked the Ilbegi for two lads to go with hip* 
to help his servants. The answer was, " We are a wander- 
ing people, Bakhtiaris cannot be servants, but some of 
our young men will go with you," — and three brothers 
joined us there, absolute savages in their ways. A cow 
was offered for the march, and on the Agha jocularly 
saying that he should have all the milk, the Ilbegi said 
that I should have one to myself, and sent two. He 
complained that I did not ask for anytliing, and said 
'Aat I was their guest so long as I was in their country, 
And must treat them as brothers and ask for all I need. 
" Don't feel aa if you were in a foreign land " he said ; " we 
love the English." 1. L. B. 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LETTER XV 

AitPAL, May 14. 

The week spent here has passed rapidly. There ia much 
coming and going. My camp is by the side of a 
frequented pathway, close to a delicious spring, much 
resorted to by Ilyat women, who draw water in mussodcs 
and copper pots, and gossip there. The Ilyats are on 
the inarch to their summer quarters, and the steady tramp 
of their tiocks and lierds and the bleating of their sheep 
is heard at intervals throughout the nights. Sometimes 
one of their horses or cows stumhles over the t«nt ropes 
and nearly brings the tent down. Servants of the llkhsjii 
with messages and presents of curds, celery pickled in 
aour cream, and apricots, go to and fro. Sick peo^ 
come at intervals all day long, and the medicine chest u 
in hourly requisition. 

The sick are not always satisfied with occasional 
visits to the Hakim's tent: a mau, who has a little 
daughter ill of jaundice, after coming twice for medicine. 
has brought a tent, and has established himself in it with 
his child close to me, and a woman with bad eyes has 
also pitched a tent near mine ; at present thirteen people 
come twice daily to liave zinc lotion dropped into their 
eyes. The fame of the "tabloids" has been widely 
spread, and if I take common powders out of papers, or 
liquids out of bottles, the people shake their heads and 
say they do not want those, but " the fine medicines out of 



THE ARDAL PLATEAU 

the leather box." To auch an extent is tliis 
carried that they reject decoctions of a species of arUm-ma, 
a powerful tonic, unless I put tahloids of permanganate of 
potass (Condy's fluid) into the bottle before their eyes. 

They have do idea of the difference between curable 
and incurable maladies. Many people, stone blind, have 
come long distances for eye-lotion, and to-night a man 
nearly blind came in, leading a man totally blind for 
eight years, asking me to restore his sight. The blind 
had led the blind from a camp twenty-four miles off! 
Octogenarians believe that I can give them back their 
hearing, and men with crippled or paralysed limbs think 
that if I would give them some " Feringhi ointment," of 
jwbich they have heard, tliey would be restored. Some 
«ome to stare at a Feringhi lady, others to see my tent, 
which they occasionally say is " fit for Allah," and the 
general result is that I have very little time to myself. 

Tlie Ardal plateau is really pretty at this season, and 
I have had many pleasant evening gallops over soft green 
and soft red earth. The view from the tent is 
pleasant: on the one side the green slopes which fall 
down to the precipices which overhang the Kanin, with 
the snowy mountains, deeply cleft, of the region which is 
still a geographical mystery beyond them ; ou the other, 
mountains of naked rock with grass running up into 
their ravines, and between them and me billows of grass 
-and wild flowers. A barley slope comes down to my 
.tent The stalks are only six inches long, and the ears, 
though ripe, contain almost nothing. Every evening a 
■ervant of the Ilkhani brings three little wild boars to 
■feed on the grain. Farther down the path are the 
servants' and muleteers' camps, surrounded by packing- 
;, yekdans, mule-bags, nose-bags, gear of all kinds, 
and the usual litter of an encampment 

The men, whether Indian, Persian, Beloochi, or 
VOL 1 z 




338 



JOUHNEYS IN PERSIA 



Bakhtiari, are all qniet and well-behaved. The motto 
the camps is " Silence is golden." Hadji Husseia 
qoiet in manner and speech, and though he has eev 

muleteers, yells and shouta are unknown. 

There ia something exciting in the prospect of travi 
ling through a region much of which is unknown si 
unmapped, and overlooked hitherto by both geographic 
and commercial enterprise ; and in the prospective goo 
fortune of learning the manners and customs of trifai 
untouched by European influence, and about whose D 
ception of a Feringbi woman doleful prophecies hai 
been made. 

Thir, May 18. — The last day at Ardal waa a boq 
one. Several of the Khans called to take leave. I madft 
a farewell visit to the Ilkbani'a fuiram ; people came tat 
medicines at intervals from 5 A.&1. till 9 p.m. ; numberleai 
eye-lotions had to be prepared ; stores, straps, ropes, i 
equipments had to be looked to ; presents to be gi' 
to the Ilkhani's servants ; native shoes, with webbi] 
tops and rag soles, to be hunted for to replace booC 
which could not be mended, and it was late before t 
preparations were completed. During the night some 
my tent ropes were snapped by a stampede of mulM 
and a heavy thunderstorm coming on with wind i 
rain, the tent flapped about my ears till dawn. 

It was very hot when we left the next morning. 1 
promised escort was not forthcoming. Tlie detaHa 
each day's march have been much alike. I start early, 
taking Mirza with me with the shvidari, halt ususU 
half-way, and have a frugal lunch of milk and 
cuits, read till the caravan has passed, rest in my 
for an hour, and ride on till I reach the spot «jhi 
for the camp. Occasionally on arriving it ia foun 
that the place selected on local evidence ia uusuit 
able, or the water is scanty or bad, and we march fartlu 



V THE BAGGAGE ANIMALS 339 

Ihe greatest luxury is to find the teut pitched, the camp 
'bed put up, and the kettle hoiling for afternoon tea, 

rest, write, and work till near sunset, when I dine 
n mutton and rice, and go to hed soon after dark, as I 
breakfast at four. An hour or two is taken up daily 
rith giving medicines to sick people. 

There are no villages, but camps occur frequently. 

3 three young savages brought from Nnghun are very 
tmusing from the savage freedom of their ways, hut they 
Exasperate the servants hy quizzing and mimicking them. 
Che cows are useless. Between them they give at most 

teacupfnl of milk, and generally none. Either the 
lives or the boys take it, or the marches are too much 
for them. In the Ilyat camps there is plenty, but as it 
Eb customary to mix the milk of sheep, goats, and cows, 
knd to milk the animals with dirty hands into dirty 
Dopper pots, and almost at once to turn the milk into a 
lour mass, like whipped cream in appearance, hy shaking 
it with some " leaven " in a dirty goat-skin, a European 
cannot always drink it. Indeed, it goes through every 
rariety of had taste. 

The camps halt on Sundays, and the men highly 
Ippreciate the rest. They sleep, smoke, wash and mend 
ieir clothes, and are in good humour and excellent trim 
nt Monday morning, and the mules show their uncon- 
ieious appreciation of a holiday by coming into camp 
kicking and frolicking. 

The bi^age animals are fine, powerful mides and 
Itorsea, with not a sore hack among them. The pack 
iBddles and tackle are all in good order. The caravan 
ia led by a horse caparisoned with many bells and tassels, 
a splendid little gray fellow, full of pluck and fire, called 
Cock o' the Walk. He comes in at the end of a long 
march, arching hi.^ neck, shaking his magnificent mane, 
and occasionally kicking off his lond. Sometimes he 



S40 JOUENEYS IN PERSIA letteb it 

knocks down two or tbree men, dashes off with Lis load at 
a gallop, and even when liobbled managea to liop up to the 
two Arabs and challenge them to a fight Uliese handsome 
horses have some of the qualities for which their breed is 
famous, and are as surefooted as goats, but they are veiy 
noisy, and they hate each other and disturb the jieace of 
the camp by their constant attempts to fight My horse^ 
Screw, can go wherever a mule can find foothold. He 
19 ugly, morose, a great fighter, and most uuinleresljng. 
The donkeys and a fat retriever are destitute of "salient 
points." 

Hadji Hussein, the ckarvadar, has elevated his pro- 
fession into an art. On reaching camp, after unloading 
each muleteer takes away the five animals for which be 
is responsible, and liberates them, with the saddles on, w 
graze. After a time they drive them into camp, remove tlie 
saddles, and groom them thoroughly, while the saddler goes 
over the equipments, and does any repairs that are needei 
After the grooming each muleteer, having examined tlie 
feet of his animals, reports upon them, and Hadji repUca 
all lost shoes and nails. The saddles and tJie JuU or 
blankets are then put on, the mules are watered in 
batches of five, and are turned loose for tJie night to feed, 
with two muleteers to watch them hy turns. Hadji, whose 
soft voice and courteous manners make all dealings with 
him agreeable, receives his orders for the morrow, and he 
with his young son, Abbas All, and the rest of the mule- 
teers, camp near my tent, cook their supper of blanket 
bread with mast or curds, roll their heads and persona in 
blankets, put their feet to the fire, and are soon asleep, 
but Hadji gets up two or three times in the night to look 
after his valuable property. 

At 4 A.M. or earher, the mules are driven into caiDpi 
and are made fast to ropes, which are arranged the previous 
night by pegging them down in an oblong forty feet by 






iRXV HADJI HUSSEIN 341 

twenty. Nose-bags with grain are put on ; and as the 
l)ads are got ready the mules are loaded, with Hadji's help 
and supervision. No noise is allowed during this operation. 
After an hour or more the caravan moves, led by Cock 

r the Walk, usually with two men at his head to mode- 
tate hia impetuosity for a time, with a guide ; and Hadji 
on his fine-looking saddle mule looks after the safety of 
everything. He is punctual, drives fast and steadily, and 
■Iways reaches the camping-ground in good time. When 
lie gets near it he dismounts, and putting on the air of 
" your most obedient servant," leads in Cock o' the Walk. 
Be is really a. very gentlemanly man for his position, but 
is unfortunately avaricious, and though he has amassed 
what is, for Persia, a very large fortune, he wears very 
poor clothes, and eats sparingly of the poorest food. He 

9 a big man of fifty, wears blue cotton clothing and a 
led turban, is very florid, and having a white or very gray 
l>eard, has dyed it an orange red with henna. 

My servants have fallen fairly well into their work, 
1)ut are frightfully slow. All pitch the tents, and Hassan 
cooks, washes, packs the cooking and table equipments, 
and saddles my horse. Mirza Yusuf interprets, waits on 
me, packs the tent furnisldnga, rides with me, and is 
llways within hearing of my whistle. He is good, 

nthful, and intelligent, sketches with some talent, ia 
llways cheerful, never grumbles, is quite indifferent to 
personal comfort, gets on well with the people, is obliging 

I every one, is always ready to interpret, and though 
well educated has tiie good sense not to regard any work 
" menial." Mehemet A!i, the " superfluity," is a scamp, 
imd, I fear, dishonest. The servants feed themselves on 

I kran (8d.) a day, allowed as " road money." Sheep 
lare driven with us, and are turned into mutton as re- 
quired. Keally, they follow us, attaching themselves to 
;the gray horses, and feeding almost among their feet. 





JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



My food consists of roast mutton, ric«, chapaUtes, I 
aud milk, Avitliout luxuries or variety. Lofe is v< 
simple and very free from purposeless bothers. The ixf 
are becoming very hot, but the nights are cooL H 
black Hies aud the sand-tlies are the chief tormentors. 

On leaving Ardal we passed very shortly into a r 
little traversed by Europeans, embraclug rem&rkmb 
gorges and singularly abrupt turns in ravines, thronj 
which the Karun, here a deep and powerful stream, liiii 
its way. A deep descent over grassy hills to a rui 
village in a valley and a steep ascent took us to the fan 
booths, which are the summer quai'teiB of our fonoBt 
escort, liustem Kliau, who received us with court«ov 
hospitality, and regaled us with fresh cow's milk in i. 
copper basin. He introduced me to twelve women and' 
a number of children, nearly all with soie eyes. That 
is not a shadow of privacy iu these tents, with opM 
fronts and sides. The carpets, which are made by I 
women, serve as chairs, tables, and beds, and the I 
wall of roughly-heaped stones at the back for trunks a 
wardrobe, for on it they keep their " things " in immei 
saddle-bags made of handsome rugs. Tlie visible fan 
ture consists of a big copper bowl for food, a small a 
for milk, a huge copper pot for clarifying butter, and I 
goat-skin suspended from three poles, which is jerked l^'i 
two women seated on the ground, and is used for chu] 
ing butter and making cnrds. 

A steep ascent gives a superb view of a confused a 
of mountains, and of a precipitous and tremendous t 
the Tang-i- Ardal, through which the Karun passes, i 
a singularly abrupt turn after leaving a narrow i 
apparently inaccessible canon or rift on the south side < 
the Ardal valley. A steep zigzag descent of 600 ; 
in less than three-quarters of a mile brings the ' 
down to the Karun, a deep bottle-green rivi 



I.ETTES XV 



STONE LIONS 



swirling in drifts of foam, now resting momentarily in 
quiet depths, but always giving an impression of volume 
and power. Large and small land turtles abound in 
that fiercely hot gorge of from 1000 to 2000 feet deep. 
The narrow road crosses the river on a bridge of two 
arches, and proceeds for some distance at a considerable 
height on its right bank. TIilto I saw natural wood for 
the first time since crossing the Zagros mountains in 
January, and though the oak, ash, and' maple are poor and 
stunted, their slender shade was delicious. Eoses, irises, 
St. John's wort, and other fiowers were abundant 

The path ascends past a clear spring, up steep zigzags 
to a graveyard in which are several stone lions, rudely 
carved, of natural size, facing Mecca-wards, with pistols, 
Bwords, and daggers carved in relief on their sides, marking 
the graves of fighting men. On tliis magnificent point 
above the Karun a few hovels, deserted in summer, sur- 
Kiunded by apricot trees form the village of Duashda 
Imams, which has a superb view of the extraordinary and 
■ainuous chasm through which the Karun passes for many 
miles, thundering on its jagged and fretted course between 
gigantic and nearly perpendicular cliffs of limestone and 
conglomerate. Near this village the pistachio is abundant, 
and planes, willows, and a large-leaved clematis vary the 



Leaving the river at this point, a somewhat illegible 
■path leads through "park-like" scenery, fair slopes of 
3 and flowers sprinkled with oaks singly or in clumps, 
ides among trees in their first fresh green, and evermore 
a a background gray mountains slashed with snow. 
In the midst of these pretty uplands is the Ilyat 
1. encampment of Martaza, with its black tents, donkeys, 
F aheep, goats, and big fierce dogs, which vociferously rushed 
(upon Downie, the retriever, and were themselves nished 
I Upon and gripped by a number of women. The people. 




844 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA lstteb iv 

having been informed of our intended arrival by Keza Kuli 
Elian, had arranged a large tent with carpets and cuEbioQB. 
but we pitched the camps eventually on an oak-covered 
elope, out of the vfay of the noise, curiosity, and evil odours 
of Martaza. Water is very scarce there, three wella or 
pools, fouled by the feet of animals, being the only 
supply. 

I rested on my dhurrie under an oak tUI the caravan 
came up. It was a sweet place, but was soon invaded, 
and for the rest of the day quiet and privacy were onl 
of the question, for presently appeared a fine, florid, 
buxom dame, loud of speech, followed by a number ol 
women and children, all as dirty as it is possible to lie, 
and all crowded round me and sat down on my carpel. 
This Khanitm Skirin is married to the chief or headman, 
but being an heiress she " bosses " the tribe. She brought 
up bolsters and quilts, and begged us to consider themselves, 
the whole region, and all they bad as piskkash (a present 
from an inferior to a superior), but when she was asked if 
it included herself, she blushed and covered her face. 
After two hours of somewhat flagging conversatioD she 
led her train back again, but after my tent was pitched 
she reappeared with a much larger number of women. 
including two betrothed girls of sixteen and seventeen 
years old, who are really beautifuL 

These maidens were dressed in clean cotton costumes, 
and white veils of figured silk gauze enveloped them 
from head to foot. They unveiled in my tent, and 
looked more like hmiris than any women I have seen in 
the East ; and their beauty was enhanced by the sweet- 
ness and maidenly modesty of tlieir expression. I wished 
them to be photographed, and they were quite willing, 
but when I took them outside some men joined the 
crowd and said it should not be, and tliat when their 
betrothed husbands came home they would tell them 



LETTER SV 



THE KHANUM SHIBIN 



low bold and bad they had been, and wonld have them 
beaten. Although these beauties had been moat modest 
and maidenly in their behaviour, they were sent back 
Vith blows, and were told not to come near ua again. 
The Agha entertained the Khamvm Shirin for a long time, 
And the conversation was veiy animated, but when he set 
K very fine musical box going for their amusement the 
lady and the rest of the crowd became quite listless and 
apathetic, and said they much preferred to talk. When 
Uieir prolonged visit came to an end the Khanum led 
her train away, with a bow which really had something 
graceful dignity in it 

The next morning her husband, the Mollah-i-Mariaza, 
his son, mounted on one horse, came with us as 
guides, and when we halted at their camp the Khanwni. 
took the whip out of my hand and whipped the women 
all round with it, except the offending beauties, who 
were not to be seen. The TJioUah is a grave, quiet, and 
most respectable - looking man, more hke . a thriving 
merchant thau a nomad chief, though he does carry 
arms. He is a devout Moslem, and is learned, i.e, he 
can read the Koran. 

lo a short time the woodland beauty is exchanged 
for weedy hills and slopes strewn with boulders. Getting 
other guides at an Ilyat camp, we ascended Sanginak. a 
mountain 8200 feet high, from the top of which a 
good idea of the local topography is gained. The most 
striking features are the absence of definite peaks and 
the tremendous gorges and ahnipt turns of the Karun, 
which swallows in its passage all minor streams. 
Precipitous ranges of great altitude hemmed in by 
ranges yet loftier, snow-covered or snow-patched, with 
deep valleys between them, well grassed and often well 
wooded, great clefts, through which at some seasons 
etreama reach the Karun ; mountain meadows spotted with 



84« 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



the black tenta of Ilyats, aud deserted hovels far belor, 
with patches of wheat and barley, make np the Uad- 
8cape. 

These hills are covered .with celery of immense m. 
The leaves are dried and stacked for fodder, and the 
underground stalks, which are very white, are a gnai 
article of food, both fresh and steeped for a length of 
time iu sour milk. After resting in some Ilyat tents, 
where the people were friendly and dirty, we had t 
moat tiresome march over treeless hills covered irith 
herbs, and down a steep descent into the Gurab plain, 
on which a great wall of rocky mountains of definite 
and impressive shapes descends in broken spura. Mj 
guide, who had never been certain about the way, led 
me wrong. No tents were visible, the nomads I met 
had seen neither tents nor caravan. Two hours went \>J 
in toiling round the bases of green hills, and then tbete 
was the joyful surprise of coming upon my tent pitched, 
the kettle boiling, the mules knee-deep in food, close hj 
the Chesmeh-i-Gurab, a copious spring of good water, wf 
which one could safely drinli. 

This Gurab plain, one of very many lying high up 
among these Luristau mountains, is green and pretty now— 
a sea of bulbs and grass, but is brown and dusty from 
early in June onwards. It is about four miles long hj 
nine or ten broad, and is watered by a clear and wonder- 
fully winding stream, which dwindles to a thread later 
on. The nomads are already coming up. 

The rest was much bmken by the critical state of 
Karim'a arm, which was swelled, throbbing, and inflamed 
all round the wound inflicted by JCarun on May 13, 
and he had high fever. It was a helpless predicament, 
the synaptoraa were so like those of gangrene. I thought 
he would must likely die of the hot marches. It was 
a very anxious night, as all our methods of healing 



THE TUB CAMPINO.GROTJND 



347 



were exhausted, and the singular improvement which 
set ill and has continued must have been the work of 
the Great Physician, to whom an appeal for help was 
earnestly made. The wound is daily syringed with 
Coiidy's fluid, the only antiseptic available, and has a 
drainage tube. To-day I have begun to use eucalyptus 
oil, with which the man is deUghted, possibly because he 
has heard that it is very expensive, and that I have 
hardly any left ! 

Yesterday I had the amusement of shifting the camps 
to another place, and Hadji was somewhat doubtful of ray 
leadership. On arriving at the beautiful crystal spring 
which the guide had indicated as the halting-place for 
Sunday, I found that it issued from tinder a mound of 
grass-grown graves, was in the full sun blaze, and at 
the lowest part of the plain. The guide asserted that it 
was the only spring, but having seen a dark staiu of 
vegetation high among the hills, I halted the caravan 
and rode off alone in search of the water I hoped it 
indicated, disregarding the suppressed but unmistakably 
sneering laughter of the guide and ckarvadars. lu less 
tliau a mile I came upon the dry bed of a rivulet, a little 
higher up on a scanty, intermittent trickle, higher still on 
a gurgling streamlet fringed by masses of blue scilla, and 
still higher on a small circular spring of very cold water, 
with two Howery plateaux below it just large enough for 
the camps, in a green quiet corrie, with the mountains 
close behind. Hadji laughed, and the guide insisted that 
the spring was not always there. A delightful place it 
is in which to spend Sunday quietly, with its musical 
ripple of water, its sky-blue carpet of scilla, its beds of 
white and purple irises, its slopes ablaze with the 
Fritillai-ia ini-perialis, and its sweet, calm view of the green 
Gurab plain and the silver windings of the Diuarud. 

Above the spring is the precipitous hill of Tur, with 



M6 



JOURNEYS IX PERSIA 



L 



the remains of a rude Fort on its shattered rocky summit. 
Two similar ruins are visible from Tur, one od a 
rocky ledge of an offahoot of the Kuli-i-Gerra, on the 
other side of the Dinarud valley, the other on the creat 
of a noble headland of the Sanganaki range, which is 
visible throughout the whole region. The local legend con- 
cerning them is that long before the days of the Partluan 
kings, and when bows and arrows were the only weapons 
known, irou being undiscovered, there was in the neigh- 
bourhood of Gurab a king called Faruk Padishah, who 
had three sons, Salmon, Tur, and Iraj. It does not 
appear to be usual among the Bakhtiaria for sons to "get 
on " together aft«r their father's death, and the three 
youths ciuarrelled and built these three impregnabie 
forts — Killa Tur, the one I examined, Eilla Iraj, ani 
Killa Salmon. 

Tlie beautiful valley was evidently too narrow for 
their ambition, and leaving their uncomfortable fastnesses 
they went northwards, and founded three empires, Sal- 
mon to the Golden Horn, where he founded Stamlwi 
Tur to Turkistau, and Iraj became the founder of the 
Iranian Empire. 

Killa Tur is a stone building mostly below the surface 
of the hill-top, of rough hewn atone cemented with lime 
mortar of the hardness of concrete. The inner space of 
the fort is not more than eighty square yards. The wall* 
are from three to six feet thick. 

Ckigakhor, May 31. — The last twelve days have been 
spent in marching through a country which has not been 
traversed by Europeans, only crossed along the main 
track. On leaving the pleasant camp of Tur we de- 
scended to the Gurab plain, purple in patches with n 
showy species of garlic, skirted the base of the Tur spur, 
and rode for some miles along the left bank of Uis 
Dinarud, which, after watering the plain of Ganb, 



P bmiH XY A COOL REQUEST 349 

sparkles and rushes down a grassy valley bright with 
itises aud lilies, and well wooded with oak, elm, and haw- 
ihoru. This river, gaining continually in volume, makes 
a turbulent descent to the Karun a few miles from the 
point where we left it. This was the finest day's march 
of the journey. The mountain forms were grander and 
^ore definite, the vegetation richer, the sceneiy more 
■rBiied, and a kindlier atmosphere pen'aded it. In the 
midst of a wood of fine walnut trees, ash, and haivthoru, 
laced together by the tendrils of vines, a copious stream 
tumbles over rocks fringed with maiden-hair, and sparkles 
through grass purple with orchises. This is the only 
4ime that I have seen the one or the other in Persia, and 
pt was like an unexpected meeting with dear friends. 

dossing the Dinarud on a twig bridge, fording a tur- 
bulent affluent, which bursts full fledged from the mountain 
side, aud ascending for some hours through grassy glades 
wooded with oak and elm, we camped for two days on the 
alpine meadow of Arjul, scantily watered but now very 
green. Oak woods come down upon it, the vines are magni- 
ficent, and there is some cultivation of wheat, which is sown 
by the nomads before their departure in the late autumn, 
and is reaped during their summer sojourn. There are 
.no tents there at present, yet from camps near and far. 
ipu horseback and on foot, people came for eye-lotions, and 
Remained at night to have them dropped into their eyes. 

The next morning I was awakened at dawn by Mirza's 
voice calhng to me, " Madam, Hadji wants you to come 
down and sew up a mule that's been gored by a wild 
boar." Awfully gored it was. A piece of skin about 
ten inches square was hanging down between its fore- 
legs, and a broad wound the depth of my hand and fully a 
ioot long extended right into its cheat, with a great piece 
■"' ' 1 out I did what I could, but the animal had to 
t left behind to be cured by the Mollah-i-Martaza, who 



3S0 JOURKETS IN PERSIA 

left US there. Another misfortune to Hadji was the loss 
of the fiery leader of the cararan, Cock o' the Walk, but 
late at night he was brought into camp at Dupulan quite 
crestfallen, having gone back to the rich pastures which 
surround the Chesmeh-i-Gurab. The muleteer who went 
in search of him was attacked by some Lurs and stripped 
of hia clothing, but on some men coming up who said 
hia master was under the protection of the Ilkhani, his 
clothes and horse were returned to him. 

The parallel ranges with deep valleys between them, 
wliich are such a feature of this country, are seen in per- 
fection near Arjul. Some of the torrents of this moun- 
tain region are already dry, tut their broad stony beda, 
full of monstrous boulders, arrest the fury with which at 
times they seek the Karun. One of these, the Imamzada, 
passes through the most precipitous and narrow goi^ 
which it is possible to travel, even with unloaded mules. 
The narrow path is chiefly rude rock ladders, threading » 
gorge or chasm on a gigantic scale, with a compressed 
body of water thundering below, concealed mainly by 
gnarled and contorted trees, which find root-hold in every 
rift Where the chasm widens for a space before 
narrowing to a throat we forded it, and through glades 
and wooded uplands reached Arjul, descending and 
crossing the torrent by the same ford on the nuicb to 
Dupulan the next day, 

Owing to the loss of two b^^age animals and the 
necessary re -adjustment of the loads, I was late in start- 
ing from Arjul, and the heat as we descended to flie 
lower levels was very great, the atmospliere being miaty 
as well as sultrj'. Passing upwards, through glades 
wooded with oaks, the path emerges on high gravelly 
uplands above the tremendous gorge of the Karun, the 
manifold windings of which it follows at a great height. 
From the first sight of this river in the Ardal valley to 



I 



LETTER sv THE UPPER KAKUN 351 

its emergence at Diipulan, juat below these heights, it 
has come down with ahrupt elbow-like turns and singular 
sinuosities — a full, rapid, powerful glass-green volume of 
water, through a ravine or gorge or chasm from 1000 to 
2000 feet in depth, now narrowing, now widening, but 
always the feature of the landscape. It would be natural 
to use tlie usual phrase, and write of the Karun having 
" carved " this passage for itself, but I am more and more 
convinced that this is not the case, but that its waters 
found their way into channels already riven by some of 
those mighty operations of nature which have made of 
this country a region of walls and clefts. 

A long, very steep gravelly descent leads from these 
high lands down to the Karun, and to one of the routes 
— little used, however — from Isfahan to Shuster. It is 
reported as being closed by snow four months of the year. 
The scenery changed its aspect here, and for walls and 
parapets of splintered rock there are rounded gravelly 
hiUs and stretching uplands. 

The three groups of most wTetched mud hovels which 
form the village of Dupulan (" Two Bridge Place ") are 
on an eminence on the left bank of the Karun, which 
emerges from its long imprisonment in a gorge in the 
mountains by a narrow passage between two lofty walls 
of rock so smooth and regular in their slope and so per- 
'iect & gateway as to suggest art rather than nature. This 
xiver, the volume of which is rapidly augmenting on its 
downward course, is here compressed into a width of 
about twenty yards. 

At this point a stone bridge, built by Hussein Kuli 
Khan, of one large pointed arch with a smaller one for 
the flood, and a rough roadway corresponding to the arch 
in the steepness of its pitch, spans the stream, which 
passes onwards gently and smoothly, its waters a deep 
cool green. Below Dupulan the Karun, which in that 



358 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LETTMit 

direction has been explored by several travellers, turns Ia 
the south-west, and after a conaiderable bend eDteis the 
levels above Shuster by a north-westerly course. Kesr 
the bridge the Karun is joined by the Sabzo, a veiy 
vigorous torrent from the Ardal plain, which is crosseil 
by a twig bridge, safer than it looks. 

The camps were pitched in apricot orchards in llie 
Sabzu ravine, near some eloipjuis trees, which are now 
bearing their sweet gray and yellow blossoms, which will 
be succeeded by auburn tresses of a woolly but toj 
pleasant fruit Dupulan has an altitude of only 4951) 
feet, and in its course from the Kuh-i-Rang to this poiul 
the Karun has descended about 4000 feet. Though 
there was a breeze, and both ends of my tent and tie 
kanals were open, the mercury was at 8G° inside, and at 
5 A.M. at 72° outside (on May 21). There were no sup- 
plies, and even milk was unattainable. 

The road we followed ascends the Dupulan Vm. 
which it crosses at a height of 6380 feet. The path is 
very bad, hardly to be called a path. The valley wiiicii 
it ascends la packed with large and small boulders, with 
round water-worn stones among them, and such track a 
there is inakea sharp zigzags over and among these roda 
Screw was very unwilling to face tlie difliculties, which 
took two hours to surmount. The ascent was hampered 
by coming upon a tribe of Ilyats on the move, who 
at times blocked up the pass with their innumerable 
sheep and goats and their herds of cattle. Once en- 
tangled in this migration, it was only possible to move 
on a few feet at a time. It straggled along for more than 
a mile, — loaded cows and bullocks, innumerable sheep, 
goats, lambs, and kids ; big dogs; asses loaded with black 
tents and short tent-poles on the loads ; weakly sheep tied 
on donkeys' backs, and weakly lambs carried in shepherds' 
bosoms ; handsome mares, each with her foal, running 



(plSnH IV A KILAN'S ANBARUN 353 

loose or ridden by women with babies seated on the tops 
of loaded saddle-bags made of gay rugs ; tribesmen on foot 
with long guns slung behind their shoulders, and big two- 
edged knives in their girdles ; sheep bleating, dogs barking, 
mares neighing, men shouting and occasionally tiring otf 
their guns, the whole ravine choked up with the ascend- 
ing tribal movement. 

Half-way up the ascent there is a most striking view 
j)f mountain ranges cleft by the great chasm of the Karun. 
She descent is into the eastern part of the Ardal valley, 
Plrer ai'id treeless hillsides partially ploughed, to the 
-Tillage of Dehnau, not yet deserted for the summer. 
Fattiallah Khan expected ua, and rooms were prepared 
for me in the women's house, whicli I excused myself 
from occupying by saying that I cannot sleep under a 
roof. I manned also to escape partaking o£ a huge 
garlicky dinner which was being cooked for me. 

The Khan's liouse or fort, built like all else of mud, 
has a somewhat imposing gateway, over which are the 
men's apartments. The roof is decorated with a number of 
ibex horns. "Within is a rude courtyard with an uneven 
surface, on which servants and negro slaves were skinning 
aheep, winnowing wheat, clarifying butter, carding wool, 
cooking, and making cheese. The women's apartments 
^tn round the courtyard, and include the usual feature 
gjf these houses, an atrium, or room without a front, and a 
'kish room within. The floor of the airium was covered 
rith brown felts, and there was a mattress for me to sit 
1. The ruHng spirit of the Aaravi is the Khan's 
OOther, a comely matron of enormous size, who occasionally 
lapped her son's four young and comely wives when they 
Jere too " forward." She wore a short jacket, balloon-like 
trousers of violet silk, and a black coronet, to which was 
Kttached a black chatlar which completely enveloped her. 
The wives wore figured white chadars, print trousers, 
VOL. I 2 A 



354 JOURNEYS IN PERSU litthiit 

and strings of coins. Children much afHict«d with 
cutaneous maladies crawled on ihe floor. Heaps of 
servants, negro slaves, old hags, and young gjrb crowded 
behind and around, all talking at once and at the top of 
their voices, and at the open front tlie village people 
constantly assembled, to be driven away at inten'als 
by a man with a stick. A bowl of cow's milk and 
some bariey bread were given to me, and though a 
remarkably dirty negresa kept the flies away by flapping 
the milk bowl with a dirty sleeve, I was very gntetu! 
for the meal, for I was really suffering from the heat and 
fatigue. 

A visit to a haratii is not productive of matnal 
elevation. The women seem exceedingly frivolous, and 
are almost exclusively interested in the adorumenl of 
their persons, the dress and ailments of their children, 
and in the fi-ightful jealousies and intrigues inseparable 
from the system of polygamy, and which are fostered by 
the servants and discarded wives. The servile deference 
paid by the other women to the reigning favourite before 
her face, and the merciless persistency of the attempte 
made behind her back to oust her from her position, 
and the requests made on the one hand for charma nr 
potions to will or bring back the love of a husband, and 
on the other for something which shall make the favo^^ 
ite hateful to him, are evidences of the misery of heart 
which underlies the outward frivolity. 

The tone of Fattiallah Khan's haram was not higher 
than usual. The ladies took off my hat. untwisted oiy 
hair, felt my bands, and shrieked when they found that 
my gloves came off; laughed immoderately at my Bakh- 
tiari shoes, which, it seems, are only worn by men ; put 
their rings on my fingers, put my hat on their own 
heads, asked if I could give tbem better hair dyes than 
their own, and cosmetics to make their skins fair; paid 



LETTEB XV MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 355 

tlie usual coiiiplimenta, told me to regard everytlung aa 
pishkff-s/t, asked for medicines aud charms, and regretted 
that I would not sleep iu their houae, because, as they 
8aid, tliey " never went anywhere or saw anything." 

They have no occupation, except occasionally a little 
embroidery. They amuse themselves, they said, by 
watching the sevvanta at work, and by having gills to 
dance before them. They find the winter, though spent 
in a wann climate, very long and wearisome, and after 
dark employ female professional story-tellers to enter- 
tain them with love stories. At night the elder lady 
sent three times for a charm which should give her 
daughter the love of her hualiand. She is married to 
another Khan, and I recalled her as the forlorn-looking 
girl without any jewels who excited my sympathies in 
his house. 

Marriages are early among these people. They are 
arranged by the parents of both bride and bridegroom. 
The betrothal feast is a great formality. The " aettle- 
mentg " having lieen made by the bridegroom's father 
and mother, they diatribute sweetmeats among the 
members of the bride's family, and some respectable 
men who are present tie a handkerchief round the head 
of the bride, and kiss the hands of her parents as a sign 
of the betrothal. The engagement must be fulfilled by 
the bride's parents under pain of severe penalties, from 
which the bridegroom's parents are usually exempt. 
But, should he prove faithless, be is a marked man. 
It appears that " breach of promise of marriage " is very 
rare. The betrothal may take place at the tenderest age, 
but the marriage is usually delayed till the bride is 
twelve years old, or even older, aud the bridegroom is 
from fifteen tJD eighteen. 

The " settlements " made at the betrothal are paid at 
the time of marriage, and consist of a sum of money or 



356 JOURNEYS IN PERSIj^ lctteii x 

cattle, mares, or slieep, according to the circamstancc 
of the bridegroom's parents. It b essential amon^,' d 
classes that a namher of costumes be presented to Ha 
bride. After the marriage is over her parents liesKiw i 
suit of clothes on her Imsband, but these are usoallj of| 
an inferior, or, as my interpreter calls them, of a " trivial" 
description. 

A liakhtiari marriage is a very noisy performance. 
For three days or more, in fact aa long as the festintiei 
can be afforded, the relations and friends of both partJM 
are assembled at the tents of the bride's pareuts, feasting 
and dancing (men and women on this occasion dancing 
togetlier), performing feats of horsemanship, and shooting 
at a mark. Tiie noise at this time is ceaseless. Drams, 
tom-toms, reeds, whistles, and a sort of bagpipe are I 
in requisition, and songs of love and war are cbantfldl 
At this time also is danced the national dance, ' 
ehapi, of which on no other occasion (except a burial} 
can a stranger procure a sight for love or money. It it ■ 
said to resemble the amaoutika of the modern Greeks;. 
any number of men can join in it. The daiicers fom 
iu a close row, holding each other by their kameaimidt, 
and swinging along sidewise. They mark the time hy 
alternately stamping the heel of the right and left foot> 
The dancers are led by a man who dances apart, waving 
a handkerchief rhythmically above his head, and eitbor 
singing a war song or playing on a reed pipe, ASus 
the marriage feast the bride follows her husband to fate 
father's tent, where she Ijecomes subject to her mother-' 
in-law. 

The messenger, after looking round to see that thctt' 
were no bystanders, very mysteriously pixiduced ttom hi* 
j;irdle a black, flattish oval stone of very close textnrtj 
weighing about a pound, almost polished by long hantt 
ling. He told me that it was believed that this ston^ fi 




BAKHTIARI CONCEIT 



357 



kept in one family for fifty years and steadily worn by 
father and son, would then not only turn to gold, but 
have the powtr of transmuting any metal laid beside it 
for five years, and he wanted to know what the wisdom 
of the Feringhis knew about it. 

I went up to my camp above the village and tried to 
rest there, but the buzz of a crowd outside and the cease- 
less lifting of cui'tains and kaiiats made this quite im- 
possible. When I opened the tent I found the crowd 
seated in a semicircle five rows deep, waiting for medicines, 
chiefly eye-lotion, quinine, and cough mixtures. These 
daily assemblages of " patients " are most fatiguing. The 
satisfaction is that some " lame dogs " are " helped over 
stiles," and that some prejudice against Christians is 
removed. 

After this Fattial tab Khan, with a number of retainers, 
paid a formal visit to the Agba, who kindly sent for mc, 
as I do not receive any but lady visitors in my tent. 
The Khan is a very good-looking and well-dressed man 
of twenty-eight, very amusing, and ready to be amused. 
He was very anxioiis to be doctored, but looked the 
opposite of a sick man. He and Isfaudyar Khan were 
in arms against the Ilkhaui two years ago, and a few 
men were shot He looked as if he were very sorry not 
to have killed him. 

The IJakhtiaris have an enormous conceit of them- 
selves and their country. It comes out in all ways and 
on all occasions, and their war stories and songs abound 
in legends of singular prowess, one Bakhtiari killing 
twenty Persians, and the like. Tliey represent tlie power 
of the Shah over them as merely nominal, a convenient 
fiction for the time being, although it is apparent that 
Persia, which for years has been aiming at the extinction 
of the authority of tJie principal chiefs, has had at least 
a partial success. 



35S JOURNEYS IN" PERSIA lcttm iv 

f,Tt'At such interviews a private conversatioii is impoeslbk 
The manuers are those of a feudal rigime. Heaps ot 
retainei-s crowd round, aud even join in the conversation. 
A servant brought the Khan a handsome kalian {•< 
ainoke three times. He also took tea. A great quan- 
tity of opium for exportation is grown about Dehnan, 
and the Khan said tbat the cultivation of it is alvays 
iucr easing. 

From Dehnau the path 1 took leads over gravellj 
treeless hills, through many treeless gulches, to the top of 
a great gorge, through which the Sabzu passes as an 
impetuous torrent. The descent to a very primilivB 
bridge is long and difficult, a succession of rocky zigzags. 
Picturesqueness is not a usual attribute of mud villnges; 
but the view from every point of Cliiraz, the viUage on 
the lofty cliffs on the other side of the stream, is strikingly 
so. They are irregularly covered with bouses, partly bnilt 
on tliem and partly excavated out of tbem, and behind 
is a cool mass of greenery, apricot orchards, magnificent 
walnut and mulberry trees, great ataudavd hawthorns 
loaded with masses of blossom, wheat coming into ear, 
and clumps and banks of canary-yellow roses measuring 
three inches across their petals. Groups of women, in 
whose attire Turkey red predominated, were on the houM 
roofs. Wild flowers abounded, and the sides of llie 
craggy path by which I descended were crowded ffitt 
leguminous and umbelliferous plants, with the white and 
pink dianthus, and with the thorny tussocks of tlie gui" 
tragacanth, largely used for kindling, now in fidl blooin. 

As I dragged my unwilling horse down the steep 
descent, bis bridle was taken out of my hands, and I ww 
welcomed by the brother of Fattiallab Khau, who, with 
a number of village men escorted me over the twig htidgs. 
and up to an exquisite halting-place imder a laige nwl' 
berry tree, where the next two hours were spent i" 



IBTTEB sv CAREFUL IKRIGATION 358 

.receiving visitors, It is evident tliat these fine orchards 
must have been the pleasure-ground of some powerful 
ruler, and the immense yellow roses are such as grow in 
one or two places in Kashmir, whera they are attributed 
to Jehangir. 

The track from Chiraz for many miles follows up 
'the right bank of the Sabzu at a great heiglit, descends 
loocasionally into deep gulches, crosses the spurs of 
mountains whose rifts give toot-hold to contorted " pencil 
Ecdars," and winds among small ash trees and hawthorns, 
or among rich grass and young wheat, which is grown to 
a considerable extent on the irrigated slopes above the 
liver. It is a great surprise to find so much land under 
.cultivation, and ao much labour spent on irrigation 
i&annels. Some of these canals are several miles 
in length, and the water always runs in them swiftly, 
and the right way, although the "savages" who make 
them have no levels or any tools but spades. 

Mountains, much scored and cauoned by streams, 
Tery grand in form, and with much snow still upon 
lihem, rise to a great height above the ranges which form 
■Oie Sabzu valley. From Chaharta, an uninteresting 
I camping-ground by the river, I proceeded by an elevated 
and rather illegible track in b easterly direction to the 
meeting of two streams, forded the Sabzu, and camped 
jfar two days on the green slope of Sabz Kuh, at a 
beight of 8100 feet, close to a vigoraus spring whose 
■waters form many streamlets, fringed by an abundance 
of pink primulas, purple and white orchises, white tulips, 
and small fragrant blue irises. 

Lahdaraz is in the very heart of mountain ranges, and 
M8 the Ilyats have not yet come up so high, there were 
BO crowds round my tent for medicine, but one sick 
^oman was carried thither eleven miles on the back of 
iier husband, who seemed tenderly solicitous about her. 



360 JOUBNEVS IN PERSIA LmsB ii- 

On Monday I spent most of the ilny 1000 feet 
liigher, in most magnificent scenery on im imposing 
scale of grandeur. The guide took us from the camp 
through herbage, snow, and alpine flowers, up a talley 
with Eine mountains on either side, terminating on tiie 
brink of a gigantic precipice, a cloven ledge between 
the Kuh-i-Kaller and a stupendous cliff or head- 
land, Sultan Ibrahim, over 12,000 feet, wliich de- 
scends iu shelving masses to an abyss of tremendous 
depth, wliere water thunders in a narrow rift The 
Sabz Kuh. or " green mountain " range, famous for the 
])asturage of its higher slopes, terminates in Sultan 
Ibrahim, and unites at its eastern end with the Kuh- 
i-Kaller, a range somewhat higher. On the east side 
of this huge chasm rises another range of peaks, with 
green shelves, dark rifts, and red precipices, liebind 
which rise another, and yet another, whose blue, snow- 
patched summits blended with the pure cool blue of tlie 
aky. In the far distance, in a blue veil, lies the gieen- 
tinted plain of Xhana Mirza, set as au emerald iu thia 
savage scenery, with two ranges beyond, and above them 
the great mountain mass of the Eiji, whose snowy peaks 
were painted faintly on a faint blue heaven. 

That misty valley, irrigated and cultivated, witli 100 
villages of the Janiki tribe upon it, is the only fair 
spot in the savage laudacape. Elsewhere only a few 
wild flowers and a gnarled jumper here and there relieve 
the fierce, blazing verduretessness of these stapeiidous 
precipices. Never, not even among the Himalayas, have 
I seen anything so superlatively grand, though I have 
always imagined that such scenes must exist somewhere 
on the earth. A pair of wild sheep on a ledge, a serpent 
or two, and an eagle soaring sunwards represent«d animate 
nature, otherwise the tremendous heights above, the 
awful depths below, the snowy mountains, and the valley 



NOON-DAy HEAT 361 

with its smile, were givnn over to soUtude anil silence, 
except for the dull roar of the torrent hurr)-iDg down 
to vivify the Kbana Mirza plain. 

After leaving Lahdaraz the path followed the courae of 
Sabzu through grass and barley for a few miles. Then 
lere is an abrupt and disagreeable change to yellow 
mnd slopes and high mud mountains deeply fisaui-ed, 
the scanty herbage already eaten down by Ilyat flocks — ■ 
a desolate land, without springs, streams, or even Ilyat 
tents. Then cornea a precipice at an altitude of 7500 
feet, through a cleft in which, the Tang-i-Wastagun, the 
road passes, and descends to the plain of Gandnman as 
imething little better than a sheep track on a stuep hill- 
above a stream. The heat was fierce. A pair of 
Hit gardening gloves does not preserve the hands from 
blistering. Spectacles with wire gauze sides have to be 
abandoned as they threaten to roast the eyes. In this 
latitude, 32°, the heat of the sun at noon is tremendous. 
the precipice top I crept into a hole at tlie base of a 
' the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," 
the caravan staggered up. It was difficult to brave 
sun's direct rays. He looked like a ball of magnesium 
[ht, white and scintillating, in the unclouded sky. 
On crossing the Tang-i-Wasti^n we left behind 
the Bakhtiari countrj' proper for a time, and re-entered 
the Chahar Mahals, with their mixed village population 
of Persians and Armeiiiaus. The descent from the 
Tang- i- Was tagun is ujxni a ruined Armenian village with a 
large graveyard- The tombstones are of great size, ten feet 
long by three feet broad anil three feet high, sarcophagus- 
shaped, and on each stone are an Armenian epitaph and a 
finely-engraved cross. The plain of Gandaman or Wastagun 
is a very large one, over 7000 feet in altitude, and is sur- 
rounded mainly by high mountains still snow-patched, 
but to the north by low rocky hills. Much of it is 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA letter xv 

irrigated and under cultivation, and grows heavy crops of 

wheat and barley. The pasturage is fine and abundant, 

i the people breed cattle and horses. The uncultivated 

slopes are now covered with red tulips and a purple 

alliuvi, and even tli« 

dry gravel added largely 

to the doily increasing 

botanical collection. 

The camps were 
pitched on green turf 
near three springs, 
quiet place, but thei 
was little rest, "Wa 
were hardly settled 
before there \fa& 
severe fight among tha 
horses, my sour -tem- 
pered Serene being the 
aggressor. Tiiis was 
hardly i]iiieted wheo 
there was a shai^> 
"scrimmage" betweea' 
LLe charvadars and Uw 
Agha's three yoxLBg 
savages, in which 
of them, All Jan, 
badly beaten, and came 
to me to have a bleed- 
ing face and bead' 
dressed. After that tha 
people began to coma 
in from the villagea 
for eye-washes and medicines. They have no bottles, nor 
have I, and the better-off bring great copper jugs and' 
baaina for an ounce or two of lotion ' A very poor ol4 




IKITEB sv A NOVEL MEDICINE BOTTLE 363 

woman much aWicteil with ophthalmia said she had 
three sistere all bliml, that she had nothing for lotion, 
nothing in the world but a copper cooking pot, and she 
'Cried piteously. I had nothing to give her, and eventually 
'She returned with an egg-shell, with the top neatly 
'chipped off. It is the custom to raise the hands to 
heaven and involie blessings on the Hakim's head, but I 
never received so many as from this poor creature. 

The ride to the village of Gandaman, where we halted 
for two days, was an agreeable one. After being shut up 
among mountains and precipices, apace and level ground 
to gallop over are an agreeable change, and in the early 
morning the heat was not excessive. The great plain 
was a truly pastoral scene. Wild-looking shepherds with 
long guns led great brown flocks to the hills ; innumerable 
yokes of black oxen, ploughing with the usual iron-shod, 
pointed wooden share, turned over the rich black soil, 
making straiglit furrows, and crossing them diagonally; 
mares in herds fed with their foals ; and shepherds 
busily separated the sJjeep from the goata. 

Close to the filthy walled Armenian village of Kunak 
there is a conical hill with a large fort, in ruinous 
Condition, upon it, and not far off are the remains of an 
Armenian village, enclosed by a square wall with a round 
tower at each corner. This must have been until 
recently a place of some local importance, as it is 
approached by a paved causeway, and had an aqueduct, 
now ruinous, carried over the river on three arches. Not 
only the plain but the hill-slopes up to a great height 
;are cultivated, and though the latter have the pre- 
'{^liousness of raln-lande, the crops already in ear promise 

Crossing a spur which descends upon the north side 
the plain, we reached Gandaman, a good-looking 
walled Moslem village of 196 houses, much planted. 



394 JOfKSEYS IN PERSIA LCTTEfi sv 

chiefly witli willows, and rejoifinj; in eight springs, close 
togetber, the overflow of wliich makes quite a piece of 
water. It bets an imammda on an eminence and is 
fairly prosperouB, for besides pastoral wealth it weaves 
and exports carjiets, and dyes cotton and woollen yani 
with raaddei- and other vegetable dyes. The monntdu 
view to the south-west is very fine. 

1 was in my tent early, but there was little rest, for 
crowds of people wiih bad eyes and woful maladies 
besieged it until the evening. At noon a gay pro- 
cession crossed the green camping-ground, four mares 
capariaoned in red trappings, each carrj'ing two women 
in bright dresses, Imt shrouded in pure white sheets hoond 
roimd their beads with silver chains. The ketcJuuia of 
the Armenian village of Libasgun, two miles off, accom- 
panied them, and said that they came to invite me to their 
village, for they are Christians. Then they all made the 
sign of the Cross, which is welcome in this land as a bond 
of brotherhood. 

Cleanly, comely, large - eyed, bright - cheeked, and 
wholesome they looked, in their pure white chadars, gay 
red dresses, and embroidered under-vests. They had 
massive silver girdles, weighing several pounds, worn 
there only by married women, red coronets, heavy tiaras of 
silver, huge necklaces of coins, and large filigree silver 
drops attached down tiie edges of their too open vests. 
Tlieir heavy hair was plaited, but not fastened up. Each 
wore a stiff diamonil-shaped piece of white cotton over 
her mouth and the tip of her nose. They said it was 
their custom to wear it, and they would not remove it 
even to eat English biscuits 1 They managed to drink tea 
by veiling their faces with their ckadars and passing Uie 
cup underneath, but they turned their faces quite away 
as they did it They had come for the day, and had 
brought large hanks of wool to wind, but the headman 



lariBE IT VILLAGE MATRONS 365 

had the tact to take them away after arranging for me to 
return the visit in the evening, 

He seemed an inteUigent man. Libasgun, with its 120 
houses, 19, according to his ncconnt, a prosperous village, 
paying its tax of 300 lumans (£100) a year to the Amiu- 
ud-Daiilat, aiid making a present only to the IlkhanL It 
liaa 2000 sheep and goats, besides mares and cattle. It 
has an oil mill, and exports oil to Isfahan. The women 
weave carpets, and embroider beatitifully on coarae cotton 
woven by themselves, and dyed indigo blue and madder 
red by their Gandaman neighbours. Tbis man is proud 
of being a Christian. Among the Ai'nienians Christianity 
is as much a national characteristic as pride of race and 
strict monogamy. He remarked that there are no sore 
eyes in Libasgun, and attributed it to the greater cleanli- 
ness of the people and to the cross signed in holy oil 
upon their brows in baptism 1 

I rode to this village in the late afternoon, and was 
received with much distinction in the halakhana of the 
.ielchvda's house, where 1 was handed to the seat of 
honour, a bolster at the head of the handsomely -carpeted 
room. It soon filled with buxom women in red, with 
jackets displaying their figures, or want of figures, down 
to their waists- From the red velvet coronets on their 
heads hung two graduated rows of silver coins, and their 
muslin chadars were attached to their hair with large 
silver pins and chains. Magnificent necklaces of gold coins 
were also worn. 

Forty women sat on the floor in rows against the 
wall. Each had rosy cheeks, big black eyes, and a 
diamond-shaped white cloth over her mouth. The uni- 
formity was shocking. They st-ared, not at me, but at 
nothing. They looked hstless and soulless, only fit to 
be what they are — the servants of their husbands, 
When they had asked me my age, and why I do not dye 



JOURNEYS IN PEltSIA 



I.KITE1C xr 



H 

^1 mj linir, the conversation flagged, for I could not get taiy 

^M infonnation from them even on the simplest topics. 

^1 Hotter aud hotter grew tlie room, more stolid the vacancy 

^M of the eyes, mom grotesque the rows of white diauioods 

^K over the mouths, when the happy thouglit occurred to 



me to ask to see the embroidei'ed aprons, which eveiy ^ 
girl receives from her mother on her man'inge. Two I 
moHUtains of flesh obligingly rolled out of the room, and i 
rolled in again bringing some beautiful specimens of j 
needlework. This is really what is known as " Bussiau ( 
embroidery," cross stitch in artistic colours on coarse red f 
or blue cotton. The stomachers are most beautifully J 




AN AHMEXIAK ISAKQUET 



367 



worked. The tiprons cover the whole oC the front and 
the sides of the dress. The mothers begin to embroider 
them wlieu their daughters are ten. The diamond- shaped 
cloth ia put on by girls at eight or nine. The women 
would not remove it for a moment even to oblige a guest. 
The pei-petnal wearing of it is one of their religioua 
cuatomB, only prevailing, however, in some localities. 
They say that when our Lord was born His mother in 
token of reverence took a cloth and covered her mouth, 
hence their habit. 

When the kdehttda arrived he found the heat of the ' 
room unbearable and proposed an adjournment to the 
lower roof, which was speedily swept, watered, and 
carpeted. 

An elaborate banquet had been prepared in the hope 
that the Agha would pay them a visit, and they were 
much mortified at his non-appearance. The great copper 
basins containing the food wei-e heaped together in the 
middle of the carpets, and the guests, fifty in number, sat 
down, the men on one side, and the women on the other, 
the wives of the ketchuda and his brothers serving. ' 
There were several samovars with tea, but only three 
cups. A long bolster was the place of honour, and I 
occupied it alone till the village priests arrived, — reverend 
men with long beards, high black head-dresses, and full 
black cassocks with flowing sleeves. All the guests rose, 
and remained standing till they had been ceremoniously 
conducted to seats. I found them very agreeable and 
cultured men, acquainted with the varying " streams of 
tendency " in the Church of England, and very anxious to 
claim our Church as a sister of their own. This banquet 
was rather a gay scene, and on a higher roof fully one 
hundred women and children dressed in bright red stood 
watching the proceedings below. i 

I proposed to see the church, and with the priests, J 



1 



368 JOUHNEYS IS PERSIA lettcb ir 

most of the guests, and a couaideralile following of die 
onlookers, walked to it througli filthy allej-s. This 
ancient building, in a dirty and malodorous yard, diOers 
externally from the mud houses which surround it only 
in having two bella on a beam. The interior consists 
of four domed vaults, and requires artifidal light A 
vault with a raised floor contains the altar and a badly- 
painted altar-piece representing the B, V. ; a rail separates 
the men, who staud in front, from the women, who stonii 
behind. A Liturgy and an illiuninated mediuval copy 
of the Gospels, of which they are very proud, are their 
only treasures. They have no needlework, and the alBir 
cloth is only ti piece of printed cotton. Notliing coold 
well look poorer than this small, dark, vacant buildiog, 
with a few tallow candles without candlesticks giving a 
smuky light. 

They have two daily services lasting from one M two 
hours each, and Mass on Sunday is protracted to seven 
hours! The priests said that all the men, except two 
who watch the flocks, and nearly all the women are al 
both services on Sunday, and that many of the men and 
most of the women are at both daily services, one of 
which, as is usual, hegiiia before daylight. There is no 
school. The fathers teach their boys to rend and writs, 
and the motliers iustruct their gii-ls in needlework. 

After vi8it.9 to the priests' houses, a number of 
villagers on horseback escorted me back to Gandamao. 
The heat of tliose two days was very great for May, the 
mercury marking 83° in the shade at 10 .i,M. One 
hundred and thirteen people came for medicines, and in 
their eagerne.w they swarmed round both ends of the 
tent, blocking out all air. The ailments were much 
more varied and serious than among the Bakhtiaris. 

The last march was a hot and tedious one of eighteen 
miles, along an uninteresting open valley, much ploughed. 



LETTER XV A JANIKI KHAN 3(i9 

bounded by sloping herbage-covered hillB, surmounted by 
parapets of perpendicular rock. After passing tlie lai-ge 
Moslem villnge of Baldiji, we re-eutered the Bakhtiari 
country, ascended to the Bakhtiari village of Dastgird, 
descended to the plain of Chigakhor, skirted its southern 
margin, and on its western side, on two spurs of the 
great Kiih-i-Kaller range, with a ravine between them, 
the camps were pitched. In two days moat of the tents 
were blown down, and were moved into two ravines 
with a hill between them, on which the Sahib on his 
arrival pitched his camp. 

My ravine has a spring, with exactly apace for my 
tent beside it, and a platform higher up with just room 
enough for the servants. A strong stream, rudely brawl- 
ing, issuing from the spring, disturbs sleep. There la 
no possibility of changing one's position by even a six- 
feet stroll, BO rough and steep is the ground. Mirza 
bringing my meala from the cooking tent has a stick to 
steady himself. At first there was nothing to see but 
scorched moun tains opposite, and the green plain on 
which the ravine opens, but the Ifnklm's tent was soon 
discovered, and I have had 27S "patients '! Before I 
am up in the morning they are sitting in rows one 
behind another on the steep ground, their horses and 
asses grazing near them, and all day they come. One of 
the chiefs of the Janiki tribe came with several saddle 
and baggage horses and even a tent, to ask me to go 
with him to the great plain of Khaua Mirza, three days' 
march from here, to cure his wife's eyes, and was 
grieved to the heart when I told him they were beyond 
my skill. He stayed while a great number of sick 
people got eye-lotions and medicinea, and then asked me 
why I gave these medicines and took so much trouble. 
I replied that our Master and Lord not only commanded 
UB to do good to all men as we have opportunity, but 
VOL. 1 2 B 



370 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



Himself healed the sick. " You call Ilim Master and 
Lord," he said ; " He was a great Prophet, Seiul a Halnm 

to 7(s in His likatess." 

I have lieard so much of Chigakhor that I am dis- 
appointed, with the reality. There are no trees, most of 
the snow haa melted, the mountains are not very bold in 
their features, the plain has a sort of lowland look about 
it, aud though its altitude is 7500 feet, the days and 
even nights are very hot. Tlie interest of it lies in 
it being the summer resort of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi, 
a fact which makes it the great centre of Bakbtiari 
life. As, many as 400 tents are pitched here la Uie 
height of the season, and the coming and going of 
Khans and headmen with tribute and on other business 



The plain, wliich is about seven miles long by three 
broad, is quite level. Near the south-east end is a 
shallow reedy mere, fringed by a fertile swampiness, which 
produces extraordinaiy crops of grass far out into the 
middle of the level. 

Near the same end is a rocky eminence or island, on 
which is the fortress castle of the Ilkhani. The " season " 
begins in early June, when the tribes come up from the 
warm pastures of Dizful and Shuster, to which they 
return with their pastoral wealth in the autumn, after 
which the plain ia flooded aud frozen for the winter. At 
the north end are the villages of Dastginl and Auragua, 
and a great deal of irrigated land producing wheat 
Except at that end the plain is surrounded by mountains ; 
on its southern side, where a part of the Sukhta range 
rises into the lofty peak of Challeh Euh, with its suow- 
slashes and snow-fields, they attain an altitude of 12,000 
or 13,000 feet. 

It is not easy, perhaps not possible, to pass through 
the part of the Bakhtiari country for which wa are bound. 



LBTTEB XV THE "SEASON'' AT CHIGAKHOR 371 

without some sort of aasiatance from its feudal lords, a 
responsible man. for instance, who can obtain supplies 
from the people. Therefore we have been detained here 
for many days waiting for the expected arrival of the 
Ilkhani. A few days ago a nimour arrived, since un- 
happily confirmed, that things were in confusion below, 
owing to the discovery of a plot on the part of the 
Ilkhani to murder the Ilbegi. Stories are current of the 
number of persons " put out of the way " before he at- 
tained his present rank for the second time, and it is not 
" Bakhtiari custom " to be over-scrupulous about human 
life. No doubt his nephew, the Ilbegi, is a very dangerous 
rival, and that his retainers are bent on seeing him in a 
yet higher position than he now occupies. 

A truce has been patched up, however, and yesterday 
the Ilkhani and Isfandyar Khan aiTived together, with 
their great trains of armed horsemen, their harams, their 
splendid studs, their crowds of unmounted retainers, tijeir 
strings of baggage mules and asses ladeu with firewood, 
and all the "rag, tag, and bobtail" in attendance on 
Oriental rulers, following them in endless nocturnal 
procession come up the tribes, and day breaks on an ever- 
increasing number of brown flocks and herds, of mares, 
asses, doga, bkck tents, and household goods. When we 
arrived there were only three tents, now the green bases 
of the mountains and all the platforms and ravines where 
there are springs are spotted with them, in rows or serai- 
circles, and at night the camp fires of the multitude look 
like the lights of a city. Each clan has a prescriptive 
right to its camping-ground and pasture {though both are 
a fruitful source of quarrels), and arrives with its h-tcltuda 
and complete social organisation, taking up its position 
like a division of an array. 

When in the early morning or afternoon the tribe 
reaches the camping -ground, everything b done in the 




373 



JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



LBTTKB ST 

most orderly way. The infants are put iDto their cradlea, 
tlie men clear the grouud if necessary, drive tbe pegs and 
put up the poles, and if there be wood — of which there is 
not a stick here — they make a fence of loose branches to 
contain tlie cauip, but the women do the really hard work. 
Their lords, easily satiatied with their modicum of labonr, 
soon retire to enjoy their pipes and the endless gossip of 
Bakhtiari life. 




After the ground has been arranged the tents occupy 
invariably the same relative irosition, whether the camp 
is in a row, a semicircle, a circle, or streets, so that the 
cattle and iJocks may easily find their owners' abodes 
without being driven. The tents, which are of black goats' 
hair cloth, are laid out and beaten, and the women spread 
them over the poles and arrange the rest, after wliich the 
inside is brushed to remove the soot In a good tent, reed 
screens are put up to divide the space into two or more 



LETTER sv A KHAN'S TENT 373 

portions, aud some of tlie tribes fence roimd the whole 
camp with these screens, leaving one opening, and use the 
interior for a sheepfold. The small hushes are grubbed 
up for fuel. The women also draw the water, and the 
boys attend to the flocks. Many of the camps, however. 
have neither fences nor environing screens, and their in- 
mates dwell without any attempt at privacy, and rely for 
the safety of their flocks on big and trustworthy dogs, 
of which every camp has a numlier. 

When they move the l}ulk of the labour again falls 
on the women. They first make the baggage into neat 
small packages suited for the backs of oxeu ; then they 
take up the tent pe^, throw down the tents, and roll 
them up in the reed screen.^, all that the men undertake 
being to help iu loading the oxen. It is only when a 
division halts for at least some days that this process is 
gone through. In fine weather, if a tribe is marching 
daily to its summer or winter camping -grounds, the 
families frequently sleep in the open. 

The chiefs tent is always recognisable by its size, and 
is occasionally white. I have seen a tent of a wealthy 
Khan fully sixty feet long. A row of poles not more than 
ten feet high supported the roof, which was of brown 
haircloth, the widths united by a coarse open stitch. 
On the windward side the roof was piuned down nearly 
to the top of a loosely-laid wall of stones about three feet 
high. The leeward side M-as quite open, and the roof, 
which could be lowered if necessary, was elevated and ex- 
tended by poles six feet high. If the teut was sixty feet 
long, it was made by this arrangement twenty feet broad. 
At the lower end was a great flre-hole in the earth, and 
the floor of the upper end was covered with ruga, quilts, 
and pillows, the household stuff being arranged chiefly on 
and against the rude stone wall. 

The process of encamping for a camp of seventy tents 




JOURNEYS IN PERSIA 



takes about two liours, and many intemiptioDS occur, 
especially the clamorous demands of unweaned iufants of 
mature years. Ue-campiug tlie same number of tents 
takes about an hour. A free, wild life these nomads lead, 
fiUl of frays and plots, but probably happier than the 
avenge lot. 

Below tJie castle is the great encampment of the 
chiefs, brown tent-8 and white bell tents, among which 
the tall white pavilion of the llkaiii towers conspicuously. 
Tlie Ilkhani and llbegi called on me, and as they sat 
outside my tent it was odd to look back two years to 
the time when they were fighting each other, and l^arely 
two weeks to the discovery of the plot of the dark- 
browed Ilkhani to murder his nephew. The Ilkhatu'a 
face had a very uncomfortable expression. Intrigues 
against him at Tihran and nearer home, the rmnoured 
enmity of the Prime Minister, the turbulence of some of 
the tribes, the growing power of the adherents of Isfand- 
yar Khan, and his own baffled plot to destroy him must 
make things unpleasant. Several of the small Khans 
who have been to see me expect fighting here before the 
end of the summer. The Ilkhani had previously availed 
himself of the resources of my medicine chest, and with 
so much benefit that I was obliged to grant a request 
which deprived me of a whole bottle of " tabloids." 

In the evening I ^'isited the ladies who are in the castle 
leading the usual dull life of the haram, high above the 
bustle which centr&s round the Ilkbani's pavilion, with its 
crowds of tribesmen, maizes and foals feeding, tethered 
saddle horses neighing, cows being milked, horsemeii 
galloping here and there, firing at a mark, asses bearing 
wood and flour from Ai-dal being unloaded — a bustle 
masculine solely. 

Isfandyar Khan, with whose look of capacity I am 
more and more impressed, and Lutf received us and led 



LETTEB XV THE FORT AT CHIGAKHOR 375 

us to the great pavilion, which is decorated very hand- 
somely throughout with red and blue ajtpliqiU arabesques, 
and much resembles an Indian durbar t«nt. A brown 
felt carpet occupied the centre. The Ilkhani, who rose 
and shook hands, sat on one side and the Ilbegi on the 
other, and sons, Khans, and attendants to the number 
of 200, I daresay, stood around. We made some fine 
speeches, rendered finer, doubtless, by Mirza; repeated 
an ofler to send a doctor to itinerate in the country 
for some months in 1891, took the inevitable tea, and 
while the escorts were being arranged for I went to the 
fort 

It is the fortress of the Haft Lang, one great 
division of the Bakhtiari Lurs, which supplies the ruling 
dynasty. The building is a parallelogram, flanked by four 
round towers, with large casemates and a keep on its 
southern side. It has two courtyanls, surrounded by 
stables and barracks, but there is no water within the 
gates, and earthcLuakes and neglect have reduced much 
of it to a semi-ruinous condition. Over the gateway and 
along the front is a handsome suite of well-arranged 
balconied rooms, richly decorated in Persian style, 
the front and doors of the large reception-room being 
of fretwork filled in with amber and pale blue glass, 
and the roof and walls are covered with small mirrors 
set so as to resemble facets, with medallion pictures of 
beauties and of the chase let in at intervals. The effect 
of the mirrors is striking, and even beautiful. There 
were very liandsome rugs on the floor, and divans 
covered with Kashan velvet ; but rugs, divans, and squabs 
were heaped to the depth of some inches with rose petals 
which were beiny prepared for rose-water, and the prin- 
cipal wife rose out of a perfect bed of them. 

These ladies have no conversation, and relapse into 
apathy after asking a few personal questions. Again 



376 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA uetcxk sv 

they said they wished to see the Aglia, of whose height 
and prowess many ramoura had reached them, but when 
I suggested that they might see liim from the roof or 
balcony they said they were afraid. Again they said 
they had such dull lives, and regretted my departure, as 
they thought they might come and see my tent. I fell 
sorr)' for them, sorrier than I can say, as I realised more 
fully the unspeakable degradation and duhiess of their 
lives. A perfect rabble of dirty women and children 
filled the passages and staircase. 

On one of my laat evenings I rode, attended only by 
Mirza, to the villaye of Bastgird to see two women whose 
husband desired medicines for them. This village is 
piled upon the hillside at the north end of the valley 
and a traveller can be seen afar off. T had never visited 
any of the camps so slenderly escorted, and when 1 saw 
the roofs covered with men and numbers more running 
to the stream with long guns slung behind their backs 
and big knives in their girdles, I was much afraid that 
they might be rude in the absence of a European man, 
and that I should get into trouble. At the stream the 
kaehuila, whose wives were ill, and several of the 
principal inhabitants met me. They salaamed, touched 
their hearts and brows, two held my stirrups, others 
walked alongside, and an ever-increasing escort took me 
up the steep rude alley of the village to the low arch by 
which the headman's courtyard — all rocks, holes, and 
heaps — is entered. 

Dismounting was a difficulty. Several men got hold 
of Screw, one made a step of his back, another of his 
knee, one grasped my foot, two got hold of my arms, all 
shouting and disputing as to how to proceed, but some- 
how I was hauled off, and lifted by strong arms up into 
the atrium, the floor of which was covered with their woven 
rugs, across which they led me to an improvised place of 



LETTER sv BAKHTIARl HOSPITALITY 377 

honour, a karsi covered with a red blanket. A brasB 
samovar was steaming hospitably on the. floor, surrounded 
by tea-glasses, trays, and sugar. The chief paid me the 
usual Persian compliment, " Your presence purifies the 
house ; " men crowded in, shrouded women peeped through 
doorways ; they served me on bended knees with tea 
4 la Russe, and though they shouted very loud, and often 
all together, they made me very cordially welcome. 
They send their flocks with some of their people to 
warmer regions for the winter, but the chief and many 
famihes remain, though the snow is from seven to nine 
feet deep, according to their marks on a post. 

I rode to tlie camp where the wives were, with the 
Khan and a number of men on foot and on horseback, 
a messenger having been sent in advance. In the village 
the great sheep-dogs, as usual, showed extreme hostility, 
and one, madder than the rest, a powerfid savage, attacked 
me, fixing his teeth in my stirrup guard, and hanging on. 
The Khan drew a revolver and shot him through the 
back, killing him at once, and threatened to l>eat the 
owner. Screw was quite undisturbed by the incident. 

The power of the kctchuda or headmau of a gi'oup of 
famihes is not absolute even in this small area. His 
duties are to arrange the annual migrations, punish small 
crimes summarily, to report larger crimes to the Khau, to 
collect the tribute, conjointly with the Khan, and to carry 
out his orders among the families of his group. I'rivate 
oppression appears to be much practised among the 
ketchudas, and under the feeble rule of Imam Kuli 
Khan to he seldom exposed. Tlie kdchiida's office, 
originally elective, has a great tendency to become heredi- 
tary, but at any moment the Ilkhani may declare it elect- 
ive in a special case. 

Though the offices of Ilkhani and Ilbegi are held only 
annually at the pleasure of the Shah, aud the ketchudas 



878 JOURNFA'S IS PERSIA 

ate properly elective, the office of KIikq or chief is striclij 
hereditary, though it does not necessarily fall to the eldest 
son. This elcmeDt of permaiieuce gives the Klian almost 
supreme authority in his tribe, and when the Ilkhani is 
a weak man and a Khan is a strong one, lie is practically 
independent, except in the matter of the tribute to the 
Shah. 

It was in curbing the power of these Khans by steer- 
iug a shrewd and even course among their feuds and con- 
Hicts, by jnstice and consideration in the collection of 
the revenues, and by rendering it a matter of self-interesl 
for them to seek his protection and acknowledge his 
headship, that Sir A- H, Layard's friend, Mohammed 
Taki Khan, succeeded in reducing these wild tribes to 
something like order, and Hussein Kuli Khan, "the last 
real ruler of the Eakhtiaris," pursued the same methods 
witli nearly equal success. 

But things have changed, and a fresh era of broils 
and rivalries has set in, and in addition to tribal feuda 
and jealousies, the universally-erected line of partisanship 
between the adherents of the Ilkhani and Ilbegi product* 
anything but a pacific prospect These broils, and the 
prospects of fighting, are the subjects discussed at my tent 
door in the eveninga 

The Dastgirc] encampment that evening was tlie 
romance of camp life. On the velvety green grass there 
were four high black canopies, open at the front and sides, 
looking across the green flowery plain, on which the 
Ilkhaui'a castle stood out, a violet mass against the sun- 
set gold, between the snow-streaked mountains. There 
were handsome carpets, mattresses, and holsters ; samorars 
steaming on big brass trays, an abundance of curds, milk, 
and whey, and at one end of the largest tent there were 
two very fine mares, untethered, with young foals, and 
children rolling about among their feet I was placed, 



txv FEMALE ORNAMENT 379 

; usual, on. a bolster, aud the tent filled with people, all 
luting, and clamouring together, bringing riieuiuatism 
■wind in the bones "), sore eyes, headaches {" wind in the 
md"), and old age to be cured. The Khan's wife, a 
Bidsome, pathetic-looking girl, had become an epileptic 
fortnight ago. This malady is sadly common. Of the 
78 people who have come for mediciues here thirteen 
r cent have had epileptic fits. They call them " faint- 
js," and have no horrar of them. Eye diseases, includ- 
big such severe forms as cataract and glaucoma, rheu- 
Snatism, headaches, and dyspepsia are theii* most severe 
♦ilments. No people have been seen with chest com- 
jAaints, bone diseases, or cancer. 

In the largest tent there was a young mother with an 
fant less than twenty-four hours old, and already its 
yebi-owa, or at all events the place where eyebrows will 
1, were deeply stained and curved. At seven or eight 
jrears old girls are tattooed on hands, arms, neck, and 
sbest, and the face is decorated with stars on the fore- 
head and chin. 

Though children of both sexes are dearly loved 
funong these people, it is only at the birth of a son that 
there is anything like festivity, and most of the people 
s too poor to do more even then than distribute sweet- 
pieats among their friends aud relations. The " wealthier" 
families celebrate the birth of a firstborn son with music, 
feasting, and dancing. 

At the age of five or six days the child is named, by 
whispering the Divine name in its ear, along with that 
chosen by the parents. 

After a long visit the people all kissed my hand, 
raising it to their foreheads afterwards, and the Khan 
made a mounting block of his back, and rode with me to 
the main path. It wns all savage, but the intention was 
throughout courteous, according to their notions. It 





3B0 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LETTEit xv 

became pitoh dark, and I loat my way, and ehould have 
pulled Screw over a precipice but for his sagacious self- 
will. One of the finest sights I have seen was my own 
camp in a tlmnderetorni, with its white tents rerealed 
by a flash of lightuing, which lighted for a second the 
black darkness of the ravine. 

Tlie next morning the Khan of Daslgtnl's servants 
brought fifteen bottles and pipkins for eye-lotions and 
medicines. In spite of the directions in Peraian which 
Mirza put upon the bottles, I doubt not that some of 
the eye-lolions will be swallowed, and that some of the 
medicines will be put into the eyes ! 

June 8. — The last evening has come after a busy day. 
The dilficultiea in the way of getting ready for the start 
to-morrow have been great. The iron socket of my tent- 
pole broke, there was no smith in the valley, and when 
one arrived with the Ilkhani, the Ilkhani's direct order 
had to be obtained before he would finish the work he 
had undertaken. I supplied the iron, but then there 
was no charcoal. I have been tentless for the whole 
day. Provisions for forty days have to lie taken from 
Chigakhor, and tAvo cwts. of rice and flour have been 
promised over and over again, but have only partially 
arrived to-uight. Hassan has bought a horse and a cow, 
and they have both strayed, and he has gone in search of 
them, and Mirza in search of him, and both have been 
away for hours. 

Of the escorts promised by the Ilkhani not one man 
has arrived, though it was considered that the letter to 
him given me by the Amin-es- Sultan would have obviated 
any difficulty on this score. An armed sentry was to 
have slept in front of my tent, and a tv/av{frhi was to 
have been my constant attendant, and I have nobody. 
Of the escort promised to the Agha not one man has 
appeared. In this case we are left to do what General 



LETTER XV AN ESCORT NOT FORTHCOMING 381 

Schindler and others in Tiliran and Isfahan declared to 
be impossible, viz. to get tlirough the country without an 
escort and without the moral support of a retainer high 
in the Ilkhani's service. Whether there have been 
crooked dealings ; or whether the Ilkhani, in spite of his 
promises, regards the presence of travellers in his country 
with disfavour ; or whether, apprehending a collision, both 
the Ilkliani and Ilbegi are unwilling to part with any of 
their horsemen, it is impossible to decide. 

I. L. B. 



END OF VOL. I 



Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh, 



F 




1 



I 

\ 









1 



il 



3 "OS' 0M03i'" 'If Sfcaa ] 

V.I 1 

1 






n 


STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES 

STANFORD AUXILIARY LIBRARY 

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305-6004 

(4151 723-9201 

All books moy be recoiled ofler 7 doyi 

^DATE DUE 






/ 


^ 


^